More international flights to UAE, London from Chennai airport, as ‘air bubble’ arrangement takes off

Now, from Chennai airport, special international flights are being operated to London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

Even though commercial international flights are yet to take off, some special international flights to select destinations alone have become operational lately, as part of the ‘air bubble’ arrangement.

‘Air bubble’ was created to enable flight operations between India and select destinations and agreements were signed with countries such as the U.S., the UAE, France, the U.K., Qatar, Germany and Maldives. Now, from Chennai airport, special international flights are being operated to London, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

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Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said flights are operated between Chennai and London and Chennai and Dubai thrice every week now. Between Chennai and Doha, there is a flight once a week. “While these three are regular so far, some of the airlines do not operate regularly and only every now and then, depending on the response they receive. We do not see too many travellers and packed flights. Sometimes, the flight is operated with half the capacity or even less than that,” an official said.

The number of people travelling has gone up now, and the ones who travel now are certainly not frequent travellers or business travellers, but this will help those want to travel for any personal reason. “It will be easier to get a ticket now and the prices to London, Dubai and Doha have been reasonable so far. If someone wants to make a trip for a family function or funeral, now, it is easy to get a ticket instead of relying just on the repatriation flight alone,” another official said.

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Meanwhile, Vande Bharat flights continue to arrive in the city. Apart from that, there are also charter flights operated to cities such as Colombo, Muscat, Dubai and Kuwait so far. “It is also easier for passengers to travel now, because there is no institutional quarantine and they do not have to spend and stay in a hotel for seven days and it is only home quarantine now,” he added.