New Delhi: All flights from the UK to India and vice versa will remain suspended from Wednesday to December 31, the civil aviation ministry said on Monday in view of the emergence of a mutated variant of the coronavirus there.
Moreover, the ministry said passengers coming from the UK through flights till Tuesday would be tested for COVID-19 on arrival at the airports “as a measure of abundant precaution”.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was “out of control” and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
This suspension to start w.e.f. 23.59 hours, 22nd December 2020. Consequently flights from India to UK shall stand temporarily suspended during above said period.
— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 21, 2020
As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned.
— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 21, 2020
The Union health ministry has called an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group on Monday to discuss the emergence of the new strain in the UK, which has led to a surge in the infection rate there.