Flights between India and UK to resume from January 8

India has decided to resume flights to and from the United Kingdom (UK) starting January 8, 2021. It has come after the decision to suspend the flights between the two nations was announced on December 22, 2020.due to the outbreak of new COVID strain.

The announcement to resume India-UK flights was made by Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Twitter recently. The Minister also said that to ensure strict travel safety rules, only 15 flights from the UK and 15 from India will be allowed to operate on a weekly basis. It means 30 flights will run between the two countries every week to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

It has been decided that flights between India & UK will resume from 8 Jan 2021.
Operations till 23 Jan will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of the two countries to & from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad only. @DGCAIndia will issue the details shortly

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) January 1, 2021

Before the suspension of flights between India and UK, a total number of 67 flights were being operated per week by the Air India (23), British Airways (29), Virgin Atlantic (8) and Vistara (7) to and from London and ten cities in India under the air bubble agreement, as reported by the TOI.
A senior airline official informed TOI that about 140 flights have been cancelled since their suspension was announced on December 22. Earlier, about 2000-2500 passengers used to fly from the UK on these weekly flights. Now that the number of flights to operate between India and UK has reduced to only four (daily), it will be challenging for airlines to take in the heavy backlog of passengers of the cancelled flights.
An Air India spokesperson told TOI that passengers, who had booked their flights for December 23 will be accommodated to fly on the first flight starting January 8. They were informed through messages and mails of the rescheduled date of travel.