After two years, regular international flights to resume from Sunday

After a coronavirus pandemicinduced hiatus of over two years regular international flights are set to resume from Sunday with airports and airlines getting ready for normal overseas operationsBattered by the pandemic the airline industry is slowly coming back to normalcy and the resumption of normal overseas flights is expected to provide a fillip to the sectorThe Indira Gandhi International Airport IGIA in the national capital which is also the countrys largest airport expects international flight departures to witness a significant jump in the first week of April after the resumption of regular international operationsWhile Indian carriers are prepared for normal international services various foreign airlines including Emirates Virgin Atlantic and LOT Polish have also announced plans about their services to and from IndiaScheduled international passenger flights have remained suspended since March 23 2020 in the wake of the pandemic and they will now restart from SundayOverseas flights are being operated now under bilateral air bubble arrangements with various countriesOn March 8 the civil aviation ministry announced that regular overseas flights will resume from March 27 amid a decline in coronavirus casesThe government has also revised the Covid guidelines for international flight operations including the removal of the requirement to keep three seats vacant on overseas flights for medical emergenciesBesides the requirement for the crew for having a complete PPE kit has been done away withIn a statement on Saturday IndiGo Chief Commercial Officer Willy Boulter said the airline is keen on resuming international operations back to preCOVID levels but that will also depend on factors like arrival guidelines of various countriesWe certainly have plans to open new destinations in the near future as well as pump up capacity on our existing routes as travel further opens up Reaching economies of scale in such a dynamic environment where ATF and other fixed costs are constantly going up becomes challenging he saidIndiGo is the countrys largest airlineOn Friday a DIAL spokesperson said Post resumption of commercial operations South East Asia and Europe are expected to be the main drivers of further international passenger growthDIAL the operator of IGIA expects to connect to over 60 international destinations after the resumption of regular overseas flightsIGIA is the countrys largest airport and handled around 18 lakh passengers per day during preCovid timesThe spokesperson had also said the number of international Air Traffic Movements ATMs is likely to increase from 165 per day to 300 per day in summer 2022The total weekly departures of international flights are expected to increase 66 per cent in the first week of April once the regular overseas flights commence according to the spokespersonThis is in comparison to the flights that operated under bilateral air bubble arrangements during winter 2021On Friday Gulf carrier Emirates said it would reintroduce prepandemic service frequency across its destinations in the country from April 1Prior to late March 2020 when the scheduled international services were stopped by India Emirates was operating 170 weekly flights to nine destinations including Delhi Mumbai Chennai and KolkataAll these flights are being restored now starting from April 1 as per the airlineThese 170 weekly flights include 35 services to Mumbai 28 to Delhi 24 to Bengaluru 21 each to Chennai and Hyderabad 14 to Kochi 11 to Kolkata nine to Ahmedabad and seven to ThiruvananthapuramSriLankan Airlines on Friday said it would start operating up to 88weekly flights to India to match the preCOVID flight schedule The airline flies to nine cities including Delhi Mumbai Hyderabad Kochi Chennai and BangaloreBritish carrier Virgin Atlantic would start a second daily service between Delhi and London starting from June 1 Coupled with its service from Mumbai Virgin Atlantic will offer three daily flights from India it said on FridayAmerican Airlines is proud to serve India with daily service between New York JFK and New Delhi DEL As India resumes international flying we look forward to expanding our presence in the country as we deepen our partnership with IndiGo and plan to launch new service between Seattle SEA and Bangalore BLR later this year Rhett Workman Managing Director iquest Europe Middle East and Asia Operations at American Airlines said in a statement on FridayPolandbased LOT Polish Airlines on Thursday said it would commence flights to Mumbai from May 31 and resume services to Delhi from March 29While mentioning about the resumption of regular international flights Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on March 8 said with this step I am confident the sector will reach new heightsOn November 26 last year the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA had announced the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights from December 15 2021 but a few days later the decision was revoked following a surge in coronavirus cases due to the Omicron variantThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever