Here's how Vande Bharat and air bubbles are keeping Indian aviation connected to the world

In January 2022, an average of 50,000 passengers departed India on a daily basis, while 36,000 arrived. All of this was on the 300 or so flights operated in the international sector, either under an air-bubble arrangement or the Vande Bharat Mission. Over half of these are operated by foreign carriers.

The period since March 2020 has been different and difficult. India headed into a total lockdown, like many other countries in the world. What followed was a frenzy to get Indians back from across the world in what became known as the Vande Bharat Mission. As knowledge about the virus evolved, the rules kept changing -- from having a separate quarantine facility for those who landed from Wuhan to home quarantine and / or testing on arrival, things changed rapidly.

While the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) continued, country after country raised the issue of Air India using the evacuation or repatriation mission for commercial operations and thus was born the air bubble. While the term became very popular and widely used, “air bubble” was perceived differently in different countries!

While a new variant of COVID-19 has pushed the opening up of international civil aviation indefinitely from the planned mid December 2021 start date, here's a look at how connectivity stands among the 35 nations with which India currently has air bubbles, with the help of exclusive data from OAG.

Last week, Kazakhstan was in turmoil, which led to an internal emergency and rioting. The airport at Almaty was seized by protesters. This was within days of Air Astana launching a thrice weekly flight between Almaty and New Delhi. The flight has since been suspended as are many other flights in the Air Astana network.

But there is hope. Afghanistan, which saw a power transition to the Taliban, has seen flights resume to New Delhi after the initial hitch. While Air India is not operating any flights to Kabul, in line with all other carriers, Ariana Afghan Airlines has started thrice a week operations to New Delhi from Kabul. There also is a weekly flight from Kandahar to New Delhi!

Geo-political tensions have heated up in Ukraine, but that hasn’t stopped its airline from continuing to operate to New Delhi under the air bubble arrangement. The country doesn’t feature in the list of top 10 countries by traffic from India but a weekly flight is keeping the connections intact.

The turmoil is not just in Central Asia. Ethiopia is also in the midst of a turmoil but the airline has maintained once a week connection to Mumbai and Delhi each.

New connections

After months and months of trying out their zero Covid strategy, both Singapore and Australia decided to open up air travel to passengers who are vaccinated. While Singapore has a dedicated Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL), it also has flights which are not part of the VTL. Likewise, Australia returned to Delhi after decades to make the most of non-stop traffic.

European sojourn

While India and Germany were one of the first ones to sign an air-bubble pact, France, Netherlands joined in and so did Swiss and Finland in the recent past. However, the frequency and network is nowhere close to what it was in the past. Together, the airlines operate 33 frequencies to India, a miniscule capacity compared to the past.

Flights also continue with Russia, though the planned expansion from Russian carriers has been on hold due to the third wave of the pandemic.

The eternal pact though, has been with the United Kingdom, with both the UK and India striving hard to continue flights even amid the worst phase of each wave. Continuous demands to cancel flights have fallen on deaf ears.

West Asia continues to dominate

Pre-pandemic, the largest capacity by seats from India was to Dubai. With a separate air services agreement with Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, the UAE has had the largest number of seats under Air Services Agreements with India.

The UAE has a staggering 492 weekly frequencies to India! Unlike in the past, the largest share is dominated by Sharjah, which has 222 of these, followed by Dubai with 199 weekly frequencies. The remaining 71 are from Abu Dhabi.

Qatar Airways is operating 105 frequencies to India, while Kuwait is seeing its two airlines, Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways, operate 83 frequencies to India. Neighbouring Oman is seeing 46 frequencies to India split between Oman Air and Salaam Air.

For the longest time, there was a demand for an air bubble arrangement with Saudi Arabia. Saudia and FlyNas operate 39 weekly flights to India covering Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Lucknow.

Gulf Air operates 14 weekly frequencies to India, covering seven points in the country. Interestingly, Iraq has been making the most of the air bubble and utilising it to the fullest with thrice a week flights to Delhi from Baghdad.

Africa

India has air bubbles in place with Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda. Except Nigeria, all other states have managed to keep a connection open to India.

The neighbourhood

When the pandemic started, the focus was on the neighbourhood. This was the case when the air bubble started, as well. India has an air bubble in place with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. While Indian carriers are not matching the frequencies of most foreign carriers, the exception has been Maldives, which saw a sudden spike in tourism thanks to Indians flocking there.

India is also connected to Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean Region with once a week and four weekly flights, respectively.

North America

The strongest of connections has been with the United States. Amidst the multiple waves in the US and India, while the rules kept getting stricter, the connections were maintained. Even as the United States clocked a record number of cases, India did not classify the country as part of the “high-risk” group.

“The restrictions on air travel bubbles undertaken by the Indian Government indicates extra caution amid Omicron outbreak across the world. Whilst this will impact on people and trade flows, we view this as a temporary than what we had seen two years ago which was more disruptive” said Mayur Patel, Head of Asia at OAG.