Fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission kicks off on July 3

Air India will fly 114 flights while IndiGo and GoAir will operate 457 and 41 flights respectively between July 3 and July 15 under the fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, news agency PTI has reported.

The government started the mega mission to evacuate stranded Indians from abroad on May 6. Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the fourth phase of the mission, Air India will operate 114 flights to India from 17 countries. Canada, the US, the UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Myanmar, Japan, Ukraine and Vietnam are the countries, according to the airline’s document accessed by PTI.

Air India’s chartered flights are scheduled to be operated between July 3 and 15, the aforementioned official document stated. It said the airline will fly 31 flights from the US and 19 flights from the UK. Earlier, a previous document of Air India had said that it will operate a total of 170 flights to and from 17 countries.

Private airlines like IndiGo and GoAir will also play a major role in the fourth phase of the mission.

In a tweet on Sunday evening, the Civil Aviation Ministry said, “Private Airlines will have significant participation in Phase-4 of VBM. Among others, IndiGo will operate 238 flights from Qatar & 219 flights from Kuwait; while GoAir will operate 41 flights from Kuwait. Number of pvt carriers, flights & destinations likely to increase.”

Air India is scheduled to operate 272 chartered flights to and from various countries in the third phase, which began on June 10 and will end on July 4.