While the confirmation on resuming international flights is yet to come from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Air India will open bookings from 05:00 pm today for phase three of Mission Vande Bharat. By Kumar Shree
After successfully completing two phases of Mission Vande Bharat, Air India is all set to kickstart the third phase from today. It will ferry passengers to and from several destinations. These include New York, Newark, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Toronto. The bookings for the same will open at 05:00 pm on June 5, and these 75 special repatriation flights will operate between June 9 to June 30.
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Talking about the same, union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri wrote on Twitter, “Normal International civil aviation operations will only start when they can. Right now most of our metro cities are under some form of restrictions due to which people from other cities cannot travel to catch flights and we also have a requirement for mandatory quarantine on arrival.”
He also wrote, “We have to wait for the domestic operations to touch about 50 to 60 per cent and consider the behaviour of the virus and its spread to fully lift these restrictions and lockdown. Till then flights under Vande Bharat Mission are facilitating both inbound and outbound international passengers.”
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The latest guidelines by the Ministry of Home Affairs suggest that international flights will resume in the third phase of unlock. The first phase beginning from June 8 will see religious institutions, restaurants, and shopping malls resuming operations. The second phase beginning in July will see the reopening of educational institutions, which will happen after consulting the stakeholders. The third phase comes after that where metro services and international flights will resume. However, there are no tentative dates as to when will the third phase of unlocking kick in.
Related: Unlock 1.0: International Air Travel Likely To Resume In The Third Phase
