India in talks with the US, Canada, Gulf countries to establish travel bubbles

India is in talks with the US, Canada and some countries in Europe and West Asia on establishing  bilateral international flight bubbles, said Arvind Singh, Chairman, Airports Authority of India (AAI), on Thursday.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) had on June 23 said India is considering establishing “individual bilateral bubbles” with the US, the UK, Germany and France.

Singh said, “Talks are mainly going on between India and the US, India and Canada, India and Europe and India and the Gulf countries to start flights,” he said at a webinar called “Reposing the faith in flying” organised by the GMR group.

Singh said a MOCA official has informed him that the discussions with the countries are at a “very advanced” level and the effort is to restart international flights at the earliest.

Scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The EU has presently banned the flights from India as the number of coronavirus cases are rising in the country, Singh said.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on June 20 said the government will start thinking on the resumption of scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July, when it expects the domestic air traffic to reach 50-55% of the levels before the coronavirus.

MOCA on June 23 had said, “As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon.”

The MOCA’s June 23 statement had come after the US Department of Transport (DOT) said on June 22 that it appears that Air India may be using its passenger repatriation charter flights as a way of circumventing the government of India-imposed prohibition of all scheduled international services.  

“We are taking this action (of allowing only those Air India flights from July 22 that have DOT’s approval) because the Government of India has impaired the operating rights of the US carriers and has engaged in discriminatory and restrictive practices with respect to the US carrier services to and from India,” the DOT had said.