Air India Starts 700 International Flights Under Vande Bharat 5; Air Bubble With UK Confirmed!

As per the reports, British Airways has commenced bookings for international flights from Delhi from August 19 since the air bubble for international to rescue stranded nationals have finalized by India and the UK. 

How Did This Happen?

On Saturday, Air India commenced the fifth phase of the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’.

As part of the 5th phase of Vande Bharat Mission, Air India announced additional flights to the UK under recently. 

In the fourth phase till July 30, the airline had operated 617 flights to bring back around 110,383 passengers.

During this phase, the national carrier is expected to operate over 700 flights between India and more than 53 countries.

on July 28, the booking for the flights commenced,  which will be operating from August 4 to August 27.

Prior to this, the airline also announced that it will operate flights from selected cities from India that include Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Amritsar and Kochi. 

Earlier, Air India had announced that it will be conducting international flights to London starting July 26, 2020. 

According to the plan, these flights would operate till July 30 and will connect cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kochi and Amritsar.

What Is The Plan?

In the fifth phase, the airline along with its subsidiary Air India Express is expected to rescue more than 1.2 lakh people from these 53 countries, according to sources.

Further, the airline will continue to apply its majority of assets in the 5th phase as they will have to pull through the ultra-long-haul flights to North America.

Apart from that, they will also have to operate extra flight services to the UK, Canada and the Hong Kong route.

The airline is also servicing the domestic sector. Till July 30, the Air India Group had repatriated more than 271,910 passengers on 1,461 flights from around 53 countries.

As part fo the  “Vande Bharat Mission”, on May 7, Air India had operated its first evacuation flight from New Delhi to Singapore.

Till then India has been undertaking one of the world’s largest repatriation operations when Air India and Air India Express started the first phase of the mission.

This not the first time for Air India, as prior to VBM, the biggest ever evacuation exercise was also led by Air India. 

Air India along with partner carriers rescued stranded Indians from Kuwait In 1990-91 and had brought back 111,711 Indians on 488 flights.