The Director-General of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) India announced that under the established ‘Air Bubbles’ agreement, Indians with any kind of valid visa can travel to the UK, the US, Canada and UAE.
“Under bubble agreement any Indian holding any kind of valid visa can travel to Canada, UK, US and UAE,” said DGCA India in a statement.
The European Union released guidelines to handle air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, that states only those with essential visa are allowed to travel abroad.
Recently, Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Puri confirmed that more air bubbles are currently being formed with other countries and will be announced shortly.
Meanwhile, India has halted the entry of travelers with all type of visa into the country except for those that have an essential visa with approval from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Only recently, India and Kuwait signed a transport bubble agreement which will enable air carriers to transport stranded passengers both to and from India. Kuwait has a large Indian population that live and work in the country.
India has also signed transport bubble agreements with USA, Germany France and UAE recently to enable gradual motion of passenger traffic during the Covid-19 situation.
Since the flight suspension period in India, the country has approved more than 2500 repatriation flights for foreign carriers for stranded passengers to move to/from India.
However, Kuwait has issued a temporary ban on travelers from 7 countries, which includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh and Iran, stranded passengers from India will not be able to fly into Kuwait. Nationals from the 7 banned countries can enter Kuwait after spending a quarantine period of 14 days outside these countries before being allowed to enter into Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the DGCA of India extended the suspension of scheduled international flights to and from the country till August 31. According to senior government officials, the ban was extended as it would take some more time for India to get the preparations ready before scheduled international operations can resume.