Indian Travellers raise concern over Air India’s international flight bookings

It’s well known that of late, flights from India to US have been allocated by Civil aviation ministry under Vande Bharat mission. It came as a huge relief for travellers from the doldrums after nearly 4 months. However, the actual booking details were not revealed.

As per the recent update from Air India, now 180 flights will operate between India and United States as part of Vande Bharat mission during the period from 22nd July to 31st August.

Flights will operate to/from Newyork, Chicago, Newark, San Francisco and Washington DC and will offer connections to Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kochi and Ahmedabad. Bookings will open and be effective from 18th July 2020 2000 hrs IST which is equivalent to Newyork 18th July 2020 1030 hrs EDT (Eastern daylight time), Chicago 18th July 0930 hrs EDT, Sanfransisco 18th July 0730 hrs PDT(Pacific day light time).

Reportedly, the tickets will be available in Air India website, booking offices and authorised travel agents. On Friday, Air India announced a slew of flights to the US, Paris and Frankfurt. Under bubble arrangements, foreigners like diplomats, Indian citizens and overseas citizens of India card holders can travel to these places.

Nevertheless, many netizens expressed concern over the flight tickets being sold out. While few twitteratis tagged air India and questioned about the discrimination as to why Canada flights were not provided to the stranded Indians. To which Air India staff replied saying they would ramp up the flights and requested to bear with patience.