International flights likely to resume operations by mid-June

Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had announced last week that domestic flights, in limited numbers, will start operations from today. On Saturday, he confirmed that even international flights will resume operations by mid-June. But this will depend on the number of COVID-19 cases in India and the intensity of its spread across the country. The announcement was made by Puri during an online interaction session on social media. Further details regarding this have not yet been revealed by the Union Civil Aviation department.

A certain number of domestic airlines will start operations from today and the government had issued guidelines for passengers. Many states had expressed their disagreement in resuming flight operations. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackery said that domestic flight operations to and from the state cannot start anytime soon. This is because there has been a rising number of COVID-19 cases and the numbers are only going to rise in coming days. Their lockdown might also get extended.

India had stopped operations of all domestic and international flights by mid-March. This was done in order to control spread of COVID-19 across the country. In the ‘Vande Bharat’ Mission that was launched in May, thousands of Indians who were stranded abroad, were brought to India. The number of COVID-19 cases had risen due to this.