News 18 | Air India Announces Additional Flights to Canada Till March 27 Under Air Bubble Agreement

Oct 09,2020

Air India has announced additional flights to Canada starting from 25 October 2020 to 27 March 2021. Bookings for the flights are now open and can be done on the airline’s official website, booking offices, call centres or travel agents.

In a recently held press conference, Hardeep Singh Puri, MoS, I/C, Civil Aviation, informed that Government of India has formalized air bubble arrangements with 16 countries adding countries like Oman, Bhutan on the list alongside earlier done agreements with countries like USA, Canada, France, Germany, among others. The Minister also added that Government is in discussion with Italy, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and others for similar arrangements.

Air Bubble agreement is a bilateral air corridor being established between various countries to ease travel restrictions amidst travel ban imposed by various countries due to coronavirus. Despite the ban, India was among the first few nations to start repatriation drive as early as May to bring back stranded Indians. Soon after, Air Bubbles were established to further ease the travel.

Till now, govt has facilitated the repatriation and international travel of over 20 lakh people through different means since 6th May 2020. Minister Puri said that under Vande Bharat Mission, 17,11,128 people have travelled back to India and 2,97,536 people have travelled out of India.

As the government is easing the lockdown further to open up the economy, more and more people are flying in and out of the country for all sorts of purposes, right from business travel to education travel and even for tourist activities. These steps to ease down the lockdown are listed in monthly SOP guidelines issued by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).