The Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the restriction will not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA. However, it said that international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on case to case basis.
"The competent authority has decided that scheduled international commercial passenger services to/from India shall remain suspended till 2359 hours IST of 15th July 2020. This restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA. However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on case to case basis," the official note read.
Earlier this week, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said India was considering travel requests from several countries. He said India was also looking at the possibility of establishing individual "bilateral bubbles" like between India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. This month, Puri had said international travel would be opened once India's domestic traffic reaches about 50% and other countries open up to international traffic without present conditionalities.
In March 2020, it became obvious that international flights in India will not operate anytime soon. Since then, Air India has been operating repatriation flights and people have been literally paying crazy money all the tickets they can for their emergency to fly back home. In the meanwhile, other countries such as the USA have now started indicating their displeasure with Vande Bharat flights.
