Vande Bharat Phase 4: 612 Flights To Repatriate Stranded Indians Between July 3-15

Air India will fly 114 flights while IndiGo and GoAir will operate 457 and 41 flights respectively between July 3 and July 15 under the fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate stranded Indians amid the coronavirus crisis.

The government started the mega mission to repatriate stranded Indians from abroad on May 6. Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Under the fourth phase of the mission, Air India will operate 114 flights to India from 17 countries, Canada, the US, the UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Myanmar, Japan, Ukraine and Vietnam, according to the airline's document accessed by PTI.

Air India's chartered flights are scheduled to be operated between July 3 and 15, the aforementioned official document stated.

It said the airline will fly 31 flights from the US and 19 flights from the UK. Earlier, a previous document of Air India had said that it will operate 170 flights to and from 17 countries.

Private airlines like IndiGo and GoAir will also play a major role in the fourth phase of the mission.

In a tweet on Sunday evening, the Civil Aviation Ministry said, "Private Airlines will have significant participation in Phase-4 of Vande Bharat Mission. Among others, IndiGo will operate 238 flights from Qatar & 219 flights from Kuwait; while GoAir will operate 41 flights from Kuwait. The number of private carriers, flights & destinations are likely to increase."

Air India is scheduled to operate 272 chartered flights to and from various countries in the third phase, which began on June 10 and will end on July 4.

The first phase started on May 7 and continued till May 16.

The US Department of Transportation announced on June 22 that it has barred Air India from operating chartered flights between India and the United States from July 22 without its prior approval, in an apparent retaliation to the Indian government not allowing American carriers to operate between the two countries.

On June 23, the Aviation Ministry said that it was considering establishing "individual bilateral bubbles" with the US, the UK, Germany and France, allowing airlines of each country in the pact to operate international passenger flights.

After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights from May 25 but in a curtailed manner and by capping airfares depending upon the flight duration.