INDIA HAS SENT AIR BUBBLE PROPOSAL TO 10 MORE NATIONS: SCINDIA

NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia is among 10 more countries that India has proposed air bubble agreements with and was waiting to hear from them over it, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia told Parliament on Thursday.

“We have 10 proposals pending for air bubble agreements. We have forwarded the proposals to these countries. Saudi Arabia is one of them,” he said in response to Indian Union Muslim League member E T Mohammed Basheer’s question in Lok Sabha.

Saudi Arabia hosts one of the largest Indian expatriate populations of about 2.6 million.

India has signed air bubble agreements with 31 countries since commercial international flights were suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Wednesday postponed the full resumption of international passenger flight services from December 15, citing the threat from the Omicron variant of concern (VOC) of Covid-19.

Several countries have imposed travel bans on people who have visited countries with confirmed cases of the VOC. Some have even shut their borders to all foreign arrivals.

VK Singh, the minister of state for civil aviation, separately told Parliament that 7,900 employees in domestic aviation lost jobs from March 2020 to February 2021 due to the pandemic.

In response to a question from Biju Janta Dal’s Bhartruhari Mahtab, Singh also said the Airports Authority of India is working on a biometric boarding system as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra Implementation at Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata, and Vijayawada airports from March. He added the facial recognition technology for the purpose is yet to be introduced.

The government decided not to resume scheduled international flights from December 15, less than a week after announcing the decision in the wake of rising concerns over Omicron variant of Covid-19.