10 additional Air India flights from USA to India open for booking

It is no secret that the stoppage of commercial air travel over the past few months has left a lot of people stranded in India and also left a lot of Indians left stranded abroad. With this in mind, Air India was assigned the task of bringing back Indians from across the globe. Ideally, they are best suited for the mission given their wide-body aircraft portfolio. But Air India has been selling tickets on both legs for many flights, while the costs per seat were arrived at with the assumption that the outward leg would fly empty.

There has been a great rush for Air India’s flights, especially to and from the USA, with flights selling out three minutes after opening bookings. This also has been because a minimal number of flights have been operated in the first month of the repatriation flights mission. Now, the number of Air India Evacuation flights is set to go up. From the USA itself, there will be a considerable number of flights that will be operated to India from June 10 to June 30, and similarly a lot of flights from Canada too. I already wrote about the first round of booking, which was chaotic and now over. Turns out, Air India has added some more flights, about ten of them from various destinations into India.

I tried locating all the ten flights, but only could match 9 between the old and the new schedules, highlighted in orange.

Flights from the USA to India during Vande Bharat Phase 3 (Information as of June 13, 2020, 1800 IST)

a table with numbers and names

AirIndia Flight Booking Online for these flights is now open.

Those who want to book these seats will be allowed to book it themselves on the Air India website. Bookings are now open, and you should be able to lap up these seats seamlessly. For example, I was able to pull up some seats from New York to Delhi.

a screenshot of a website

There are certain things to remember before you try booking these tickets. First and foremost, you still need to be registered with the Indian Embassy in USA or Canada for a ticket on these flights. As per a notice from the Indian Embassy in Washington DC,

  • Only those Indian nationals and OCI Cardholders with compelling cases and registered with the Embassy/Consulates will be eligible to travel on Vande Bharat Mission special flights to India.
  • Indian Nationals: With the compelling cases such as those facing medical emergencies or requiring return due to bereavement in the family, students, pregnant women, elderly or those facing expiry of visas.
  • Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card holders: Minor children born to Indian nationals abroad and holding OCI cards, OCI cardholders who wish to come to India on account of family emergencies like death in family, couples where one spouse is an OCI cardholder and the other is an Indian national and they have a permanent residence in India, university students who are OCI cardholders (not legally minors) but whose parents are Indian citizens living in India. [Note: The OCI cardholders falling into one of the categories mentioned above will not require any fresh emergency visa].
  • Stranded Indian nationals in US, desirous of availing special VBM flights to India, and have not yet registered with the Embassy/Consulate at (https://indianembassyusa.gov.in/reg_indian_nationals) are advised to do so at the earliest.
  • Permitted categories of the OCI Cardholders in US, desirous of availing special VBM flights to India, and have not yet registered with the Embassy/Consulate at (https://indianembassyusa.gov.in/reg_oci_indian_nationals) are advised to do so at the earliest.

Bottomline

If you are looking to fly back to India from the United States, you should be ready to book your tickets. Before that, you would need to register your request with the correct consulate/embassy as well. And if Air India’s track record is anything to go by, get yourself a lot of patience to go by, and if you have multiple credit cards, keep them along as well.

All the best!


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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. We are stranded at newjersey for past 5 mths.we have our return with Emirates. As opening of our border for international flights is not in sight and I am from chennai,I now plan to take our VBM flight to chennai.But the phase 4 sheet 2 which was released on jul17,does not show connection to chennai.kindly look into this and do the needful.thankyou.

  2. Request to operate international flights .I am senior citizen with wife in Boston.I was due to travel with a commercial flight on 2 nd July.it got cancelled my wife will run out medicines ( essential for her survival). There are no repatriation flights from here to Bangalore as of now.pls do something

  3. My self and my wife,sr.citizens,trying very hard to book return tkts to kolkata,India but failing every time.tkts are getting sold out within 10mints.we r totally depended on medicines.kindly help as our health conditions deteriorating

  4. We…me and my husband both are stranded in Chicago our Visa will expire on 30th June we are trying to fly back Mumbai but there is not a single flight from Chicago to Mumbai…there are one or two from Newark to Mumbai…but not a single from Chicago to Mumbai…

  5. All flight are for Delhi…dose the aviation minister thinks that all people from India lives in Delhi…and other part of India is jungle…and only animals live there?

  6. Please start a flight to Dublin (Ireland) as soon as possible in june Or otherwise provide connectivity for the destination. We are almost near to lose our jobs.

  7. My wife & myself, both over 70years old,came from Toronto,Canada in november.2019. we got stranded here in Chennai, with great difficulties. Although we have return flights by Lufthansa from Chennai via Frankfurt to Toronto, our give bookings have been cancelled due to the lockdown in India. Please allow us to go back in our regular flights to Toronto. As we are retirees & not financially sound, we cannot afford to pay, big amount s such as $3000 or $ 2500, per person for a one way return. At least, on humanitarian grounds, please consider our request. At the moment, we have a booking for july.7th. to fly from Chennai to Toronto. Kindly make arrangements to allow the regular international flights come ,& go from Chennai .also. we are running out of our medications & highly panicked about the growing critical situation here. We are sure there are so many forigners like us stranded here and feeling helpless. Thank you. Desperate seniors in need of help.

  8. UK-Hyderabad is our priority. Please indian government ask air India to fly more in July or allow open the skies for other air lines.

  9. Request Air India n Min. Of Civil Aviation to restore commercial flights from Delhi to USA in July, and honor the return tkts that we had purchased in india in February. Our return flight is on July 23/24 from IAD to Delhi. We are both senior citizens past 70 years of age and will run out of our medicines, and our travel insurance will expire by end of July.

  10. Only Indian not leaving in US country please do some thing for leaving in Dubai first ur Indian thn u do all leaving people in Dubai country

  11. This is surely the best news for travel industry. Each business should now be open accordingly.

  12. Request airindia to operate a flight to srilanka from Mumbai so that we srilankans who r stuck here since past 3 months can get back home

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