Air Bubble Flights Continue amid New COVID (Omicron) Guidelines Announced by India

With the rising effect of Omicron, new COVID-19 variant, all the upcoming foreign flights has been postponed but air bubble flight will continue to resume on regular schedule.

On December 1, 2021, the first case of Omicron in the USA was confirmed. This is a virus that spreads through bodily fluids and can cause fever, muscle aches, cough, vomiting and diarrhea in healthy people and pneumonia and other breathing troubles in people with weak immune systems.

The virus has been confirmed in over a hundred people across the world and the CDC has partnered with world-leading health care providers and scientists to examine the causes and treatments for this dangerous new virus.

What do international travellers need to know?

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) circular, they will now stay grounded until January 31, 2022. India now has air bubble agreements with 32 other countries, Switzerland’s most recent of them. The flight options under air bubbles will be available until regular flights start again.

An announcement by the government earlier this month stated that regular foreign flights would resume on December 15. Due to a version of Covid-19 known as Omicron, the Centeropted to postpone flights.

The Omicron form has brought back travel restrictions and stricter RT-PCR testing standards, as well as institutional quarantine, all of which will reduce foreign travel demand, which was growing in last thirty to forty-five days.

As a result, the restart of foreign flights may have to be postponed indefinitely until the pandemic situation is stabilised.

All cargo operations and flights explicitly approved by the DGCA are exempt from this restriction.” on a case-by-case basis, and the competent authorities may enable international scheduled aircraft to operate on certain routes,” the directive stated.

There are new varieties of concern emerging in the global scenario, and “the situation is being studied closely in conjunction with all stakeholders,” according to DGCA, which delayed the December 15 reopening of commercial international passenger flights.

“An appropriate decision indicating the effective date resumption of scheduled commercial international passenger services shall be announced as soon as possible.”

Omicron is a variant of the virus Covid-19 that has worldwide spread.As of now Omicron is on its Level-4 outbreak but still it cannot be said for sure whether that is the case for everyone or only in some regions.

The thing to keep in mind is that as all other viruses also Omicron can cause severe damage to the organs, severe illness and hospitalization so use vaccines and treatments as much as you can before they are made mandatory by the WHO.