Vande Bharat mission tickets reasonable as compared to other countries: Aviation Minister

The Vande Bharat initiative has been able to repatriate scores of Indians stranded in various countries across the globe; however, some have raised apprehensions over the cost of the tickets for Vande Bharat flights. In order to clear the misconceptions, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has drawn a comparison between the rates of Vande Bharat flights and the rates applied by other countries for the same routes.

Taking to Twitter, Puri gave a tabular chart showing a comparison of charges by Vande Bharat flights from Delhi - Houston in USA, Delhi - Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, and Delhi - Israel, with the rates charged by charter flights of other countries.

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Comparison of Vande Bharat rates with rates of other countries

The Civil Aviation Minister clarified that the rates charged by the Air India's Vande Bharat flights are not the normal commercial rates, however they are clearly reasonable when compared to evacuation flights of other countries on the same routes.

In a subsequent tweet, he said, travellers paid Rs 1.62 lakhs to Toronto & Rs 1.84 lakhs to Vancouver for evacuation flights organised from India by the concerned embassies whereas Indian citizens are required to pay Rs 1.07 lakhs for Vande Bharat flights between India and Canada. Similarly, for travelling to Tel Aviv, travellers of other nationalities paid Rs 82,500 for their evacuation flights organised by the concerned Embassy from Delhi, whereas Indian nationals pay Rs 51,938.

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Vande Bharat Mission

Under the Vande Bharat Mission, Air India group started operating flights from May 7 to repatriate stranded Indians across the globe amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the operation on May 7, Air India has operated a total of 423 inbound international flights under the Vande Bharat initiative, bringing close to 59,000 Indians back to the country.

The first phase of the mission saw the repatriation of Indians from over 11 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, Singapore, and the US. In the second phase of the mission, the Indian government brought back Indians from around 31 countries from May 16. The second phase was to end on May 22, however, Indian government extended it to June 13, while adding more countries to the list such as Finland, South Korea, Belgium, New Zealand, Netherlands, Kenya, Mauritius, Spain, Myanmar, Egypt, and Sri Lanka. The Indian government is set to begin the third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, with Air India opening the bookings of seven destinations from June 5 onwards.