India has been operating relief flights under the brand Vande Bharat from across the globe ever since the pandemic started. Air India, the airline, charged with the relief effort, has been doing most of the flying on the Indian end from May 7, 2020, when the official repatriation effort started. Now, with no respite in sight from the pandemic, and the fact that Air India’s efforts were just not enough, India has been striking up air corridor deals with other countries which allows airlines of both countries to operate flights for a limited period.

India has already signed up deals with the USA, UK and so on, and limited-time deal with UAE as well which had allowed for movement of people between India and UAE.

The new air corridor, which is being termed as the India Qatar Air Bubble, will initially operate between August 18 and August 31, 2020. For flights from India to Qatar, the following passengers will be allowed to get on board:

• Qatari Nationals
• Indians are holding valid Visas and destined for Qatar only (no transit to another country permitted).

For flights from Qatar to India, the following passengers will be allowed to get on board:

• Indian nationals stranded in Qatar
• Overseas Citizens of Indias holding Qatari passports
• Qatari nationals who want to travel to India under any valid category of visa approved by the Government of India for now.

Here is the Indian Embassy in Doha’s announcement about the same.

From Qatar, Qatar Airways is mounting flights to India for these 13 days of operations to start with. Tickets are bookable here. As per the Qatar Airways website, Indians will require a CoVid-19 negative certificate to board a Qatar Airways flight.  Check here for approved labs.

To arrive in India as well, and skip institutional quarantine, a CoVid-19 negative test would have to be shown and approved by the Indian immigration officials.

Qatar Airways will operate from/to the following cities in India to Doha:

• Ahmedabad
• Amritsar
• Bengaluru
• Chennai
• Delhi
• Goa
• Hyderabad
• Kochi
• Kolkata
• Kozhikode
• Mumbai
• Nagpur
• Thiruvananthapuram

From the Indian side, IndiGo and Air India Express will operate to Doha. Here are the AIX schedules. In this PDF, you will find the IndiGo schedules.

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