The Union Civil Aviation Ministry has decided that flights between India and the UK will resume from 8th January 2021. The Operations till 23rd January will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of two countries to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only.
“It has been decided that flights between India & UK will resume from 8 Jan 2021. Operations till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to & from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad only,” Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S Puri tweeted.
Puri said that the Indian and UK carriers will each be operating 15 flights per week during the aforementioned period to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only, he said.
More than 60 passenger flights per week were flying between India and the UK in December. The Aviation Ministry had suspended all passenger flights connecting the two countries from December 23 onwards as a new variant of coronavirus emerged in the UK.
On Wednesday, the minister had announced that that passenger flights between the UK and India would remain suspended till January 7 and they will resume in a “strictly regulated” manner thereafter. The earlier suspension period was from December 23 to December 31.
On Friday, Puri tweeted: “It has been decided that flights between India & UK will resume from 8 Jan 2021.”
“Operations till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to & from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad only,” he added.
On Tuesday, the Health Ministry had announced that samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from December 9-22 and tested positive for COVID-19 will be subjected to genome sequencing, which helps in understanding how the new virus variant spreads and evolves.
The new UK variant of the virus has been reported by Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore.