On Thursday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) announced that it would allow 60 special flight services to operate between India and the United Kingdom (UK) per week starting August 16.
According to a notification by the Ministry, as many as 60 flights will be allowed to operate between India and the UK until further orders or till the resumption of scheduled international commercial passenger services, which is earlier.
MoCA stated, “Out of the 30 frequencies per week available to Indian carriers, 26 frequencies have been allotted to Air India and the remaining 4 frequencies have been allotted to Vistara airlines.”
The announcement comes five days after Inter-State Council Secretariat’s Secretary Sanjeev Gupta had complained about the surge of India-UK airfares on microblogging site Twitter.
On August 8, Tata Sons promoted Vistara Airlines had responded that pricing was always a function of supply and demand. “There are only 15 flights a week allowed currently on India-U. K. route for Indian carriers and when there is relaxation and more capacity allowed, it will automatically bring down prices”, it added.
Scheduled international passenger flight services in the country have continued to remain suspended since March 23 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nevertheless, limited special international passenger flights have been operating since July last year under the bubble arrangements formed with 28 countries, including the UK.