India extends ban on scheduled international commercial passenger flights until Nov 30

In the latest development, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced on Friday that the ban on scheduled international commercial passenger flights taking off to and from India was extended till November 30. In an official circular, the Central body, however, assured that international flights would be allowed only on a few selected routes on a case-to-case basis. This new announcement comes as an extension to the previous one as the ban was supposed to end on October 31. 

According to a tweet shared by ANI, the DGCA's circular read-

"In partial modification of circular dated 26-06-2020, the competent authority has further extended the validity of circular issued on the subject cited above regarding Scheduled International commercial passenger services to/from India till 2359 hrs IST of 31st October, 2021. This restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA".

DGCA's decision comes in the backdrop of the persistent pandemic, which has also prompted it to extend the ban implemented on September 28. However, even the previous ban applied no restrictions to International all-cargo operations and flights specially approved by the competent authority. Earlier, several International flights were allowed to operate under the 'Vande Bharat Mission' and the bilateral air bubble agreements that the DGCA signed with different countries to bring back home thousand of Indians stranded in foreign nations owing to the COVID induced lockdown.

India's COVID situation

According to data released by the Union Health Ministry on Friday, India registered 14,348 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus, with 805 deaths in the last 24 hours. Besides, the country witnessed a total of 13,198 discharges in the last 24 hours, bringing the total recovery rate to roughly 98.20%, the highest since March 2020, and total recoveries to 3,36,27,632. 

Image: PTI