India bans entry of all international commercial passenger flights for one week

India today decided to shut all international commercial flights for one week starting from 22 March. The order will remain in effect till 29 March.

This comes after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said the global air transport industry could see 113 billion dollars of revenue losses for the passenger business in 2020 as novel coronavirus snowballs into a public health emergency.

Meanwhile, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) said Asian airlines are facing revenue shortfalls of over 60 billion dollars this year as a result of sharp falls in demand which have already forced the grounding of over half the fleet.By the same token, it said, many of the one million workers are unable to work because of drastic reductions in operations due to COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of positive cases of COVID19 in India stands at 167 (including 25 foreigners), 4 deaths (1 each) in Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra.

On 21 March, Air India will be mounting a 787-Dreamliner to Rome to evacuate our students, other travellers or any Indians stranded there. We are in close touch with our mission there.

The government has also suspended shall suspend all concessional travel except for students, patients and divyang category in railways and civil aviation. (livemint)