As the new COVID variant continues to evolve, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said it will notify its decision on the date of resumption of commercial international passenger airline services.
The circular by India’s Aviation watchdog, DGCA on Wednesday was on the resumption of scheduled international flights, which came as India was due to resume flights to and from.
The flights were to resume from Dec. 15, nearly 20 months after these flights were suspended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“DGCA says it will notify its decision in due course on the date of resumption of scheduled commercial international passengers’ airline services to and from India. It also said that the situation is being closely watched in view of the emergence of the new COVID variant” DGCA circular read.
In addition, the DGCA mentioned in the circular that all stakeholders were closely monitoring the global development of the new strain of COVID-19.
“In view of the evolving global scenario with the emergence of new variants of concern, the situation is being watched closely in consultation with all stakeholders. An appropriate decision indicating the effective date of resumption of scheduled commercial international passenger services shall be notified in due course’’ DGCA circular says.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) recently announced the resumption of scheduled international flights from Dec. 15, but now it has been postponed. In a recent interaction with ANI, Junior Minister of Aviation, retired Gen. VK Singh, said that “due to tremendous pressure from the public to restart scheduled international flights, anybody coming from abroad is being screened and tested at the airport, only after checking the results, they are being allowed to go in’’.
Earlier on Saturday, PM Modi had chaired a comprehensive meeting that lasted for almost two hours to review the public health preparedness and vaccination-related situation for COVID-19.
Recall that the DGCA suspended operations of scheduled international commercial passenger services to and from India with effect from March 23, 2020, due to COVID-19
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