At the speed at which Air India has been operating repatriation flights from/to Europe, they were recently ruffling too many feathers. Air India, which was the sole operator of Vande Bharat flights till a while back, was asked to offload passengers flying from Delhi to Paris because the authorisation was only to repatriate passengers from Paris to India.

The Indian borders are closed till July 31, 2020 (just announced closure for August 2020), for now so regular commercial flights are not possible at the moment from India for any airline. Which means the only way to operate to India is via cargo flights or charters. A third way is to do it via repatriation flights. KLM and Air France have been running some flights for a while now. Hi-Fly will operate a charter to India on August 1. 

Earlier, India granted permission to KLM and Air France for operating 21 flights from India to Europe till the end of July 2020. After that, Air India managed to launch more flights to France. A discussion with the UK is ongoing as well at the moment.

Canada

Air India will operate flights from India to Canada and back in August 2020, four times to Toronto and four times to Vancouver.

Delhi – Toronto and return flights will be operated on August 4, 8, 11 and 15, 2020. Delhi – Vancouver and return flights will operate on August 5, 9, 12 and 16, 2020.

To travel back to India you need to register here before your flight is booked.  To fly into India, you need to be an Indian national or an OCI Cardholder fulfilling specific requirements.

Booking these flights

These flights will be put up for sale by Air India on their website on July 29 at 8 PM India time (10:30 AM Toronto Time, 7:30 AM Vancouver Time). You can also book these tickets via Air India ticketing offices, and now, officially, with Travel Agents. This should mean the flights would also be available on OTAs such as MakeMyTrip and so on.

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