NEW DELHI : About 60 foreign airlines from 40 countries have been approved to operate 1,783 weekly international flights from India during the summer schedule 2022, civil aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Indian airlines have been allowed to operate up to 1,466 weekly international departures during the summer schedule, effective from 27 March to 29 October.
The Indian government had earlier this month announced its decision to restart scheduled international flights from 27 March, after nearly two years of suspension due to the pandemic.
Among the international airline operators, Emirates has a lion's share of the allocations at 170 departures per week, followed by Sri Lankan Airlines (128 ), Oman Air (115), Air Arabia (110), Qatar Airways (99), Gulf Air (82), Etihad (80), AirAsia Berhad (71), Kuwait Airways (56).
While British Airways has been approved to operate 49 weekly departures from India, weekly departures for other prominent foreign airlines are as follows -- Singapore Airlines (65), Lufthansa (32), Malaysian Airlines (30), United Airlines (28), Air France (20), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (18).
Among Indian airlines, IndiGo has been approved 505 international weekly departures, Air India (361), Air India Express (340), SpiceJet (130), GoFirst (74), and Vistara (56).
"(For Indian airlines) A total of 1,466 departures per week have been approved to 43 destinations in 27 countries (United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Maldives, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Turkey, Malaysia, United Kingdom, France, Kenya, Germany, USA, Canada, Myanmar, Australia, Israel, Bahrain, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Russia)," DGCA said in the statement.
International air travel in India, at about 60 million passengers in 2019, saw a steep decline during the pandemic, when only overseas flights under air bubble agreements were allowed to operate.
As a result, international passengers fell to about 10 million level during the pandemic during 2020-2021.
However, with the opening up of scheduled international operations, a surge in passenger traffic is now expected.
According to government estimates, passenger throughput in India (for both domestic and international) is expected to reach 410 million by 2024-25 from 300 million passengers in 2022-23.
Passenger throughput means the number of passengers forecast to pass through the airport in any given year.
On Sunday, InterGlobe Aviation Limited-operated IndiGo said that it will operate to international destinations like Dammam, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Jeddah, Riyadh, Doha, Bangkok, Phuket, Singapore, Colombo, Dubai, Kathmandu, Maldives, and Dhaka as the airline restarts scheduled operations on more than 150 routes in a phased manner.
"Following the easing of restrictions, we are witnessing a huge demand for international travel," said William Boulter, chief commercial officer at IndiGo.
"We hope that this enhanced connectivity with various destinations across the continent will provide a boost to the travel and tourism sector while proving to be a catalyst for economic revival," Boulter added.
