New Delhi: After the United States, France and few other countries objected Air India's Vande Bharat Mission and requested that their carriers be allowed to participate in the transportation of passengers, government sources on Friday said that under Unlock 2.0 government may allow international air travel but only on selected routes.
As per the government sources, orders for international flights resumption for selected routes could be seen in the Unlock 2.0 guidelines when the Ministry of Home Affairs will come up with detailed guidelines by June 30.
Sources said that New Delhi-New York, Mumbai-New York, Dubai-Delhi international routes are likely to be resumed by July and some airlines from the UK, France and Germany will also be allowed to operate flights to and from India.
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Ministry of Civil Aviation spokesperson had on Tuesday stated that the government is looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles with the US, the UK, France and Germany as the demand for travel has not diminished from these countries.
Notably, the US, the UK, the UAE, France, Germany, France, Italy, Jamaica and several other countries have opened their airspace for international flights.
From India, SpiceJet, Air India, IndiGo, GoAir are operating international flights but only under the Vande Bharat Mission due to which several countries alleged India of being "unfair" with regard to repatriation flights and this situation is creating a competitive disadvantage for their airlines.
According to the government data, in the first three phases of the Vande Bharat Mission, around 875 international flights were scheduled for operation from over 50 countries and so far, more than 700 of these flights have reached India, repatriating around 1,50,000 Indians.
The fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission will begin from July 3 and will focus on countries where a large number of Indians have registered to return.
