Special flights between India and the UK are going to have an increased capacity from August 16 onwards.. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has now increased the cap on these flights, from 30 to 60 per week.
The decision has come from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) five days after Sanjeev Gupta, Secretary, Inter-State Council Secretariat, Union home ministry took to twitter to complain that an economy class ticket of British Airways, Vistara, and Air India, Delhi-London route was priced between 1.2 lakh INR to 3.95 lakh INR.
Vistara replied saying, “There are only 15 flights a week allowed currently on India-UK route for Indian carriers and when there is relaxation and more capacity allowed, it will automatically bring down prices.”
British carriers and Indian carriers are presently operating 15 flights per week each between India and the UK, but the number will reach 30 each from August 16. The increase in the number of flights will remain unchanged until further orders, or until scheduled international commercial flights get resumed.
The ministry also mentioned that 26 flights will be operated by Air India, while the remaining 4 will be operated by Vistara.
Scheduled flights have been banned since the outbreak of the pandemic last year, but such international flights have been operating under the air bubble arrangement. India currently has an air bubble arrangement with 28 countries. This is going to remain so until the regular flights are once again the norm.