International commercial air travel to remain banned till July 31, confirms DGCA

International commercial air travel to and from India will remain banned till July 31, confirmed the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday, through a circular. The document stated that while the ban has been extended, the all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA remain exempted from it. 

“In partial modification of circular dated 26-06-2020, the competent authority has extended the validity of circular issued regarding Scheduled International commercial passenger services to & from India till 2359 hrs IST of 31st July 2020. This restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA,” the DGCA circular stated. 

The statement comes a week after DGCA had announced that international air travel will remain suspended till July 15. The circular also mentions that 'International Scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on case to case basis.' 

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Earlier, the Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri, had announced that India began Vande Bharat Mission to bring back around 190K stranded citizens but since 6th May nearly 445K people have already returned to India.

“We began VBM to bring back about 190K stranded citizens. But when numbers grew manifold we ramped up the mission. Since 6th May, nearly 445K people have returned on VBM (170K) & chartered flights including foreign charters (275K). More are expected to return in Phase-4,” he had tweeted.

Phase 4 of Vande Bharat Mission is now underway with the government planning to operate more than 500 flights via both Air India & private airlines.

Air India and other private domestic airlines have been operating unscheduled international repatriation flights under the Vande Bharat Mission, which was started on May 6 by the Central government. India resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25, after a gap of two months.