News

Direct flight begins Between Guwahati & Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh

Direct flight service between Guwahati and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh by FlyBig airlines began on Monday as part of the Centre's regional connectivity scheme. A trial flight with an ATR 72 aircraft had landed safely at Pasighat airport in East Siang district on Sunday, a FlyBig release said here. The direct flight service will link Pasighat, Guwahati and Kolkata. In the next stage, Pasighat will be directly connected with Shillong in Meghalaya, while Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh will be linked with Guwahati making it convenient for travellers, the release said. The Civil Aviation Ministry said on Sunday that direct flights under the UDAN scheme will significantly boost the economic opportunities in the region. FlyBig will be operating flights between Guwahati and Pasighat four days a week which will reduce the travelling time between these two destinations and also provide swifter travelling options to other places such as Rupsi in Assam and Kolkata in West Bengal, it said. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu said it was a significant milestone in building air connectivity. FlyBig had forayed into the Northeast region with its first flight from Guwahati to Rupsi in Dhubri district of Assam in the second week of May. Alliance Air is operating flights three days a week in the Pasighat-Guwahati-Kolkata route since May 2018.

Read more

Ireland to resume international travel from mid-July

Ireland is expected to adopt a Covid-19 certificate to help citizens move more freely across the European Union from mid-July, the Irish Times reported on Tuesday, quoting people involved in discussions in government. Ireland's health minister said last week that the government may introduce the so-called "green certificate" earlier than late July, as previously flagged, amid mounting pressure from airlines and employers to reopen foreign travel. Ireland has the strictest travel restrictions in the 27-nation bloc. It advises citizens against non-essential travel, imposing fines on people heading to airports to go on holiday and a two-week mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals from a number of countries. A Covid certificate would be handed out for free by health authorities in EU countries to people who received a vaccine, had a negative test or are immune, having recovered from the virus. Ireland's government will announce its plans for the resumption of international travel on Friday, alongside a timetable for the further easing of COVID-19 restrictions on the tourism, entertainment and hospitality sectors.

Read more

Karnataka notifies travel and tourism sector as priority sector for vaccination

Karnataka has notified travel, tourism, aviation and hospitality sectors as priority sectors for Covid-19 vaccination and commenced the process of preparing the details of the people in various priority sectors. As per the government notification of May 20, people working in the travel , tourism, hospitality and aviation sectors are included in the frontline warriors along with people in other segments like construction labour, people in transportation of essential goods, staff working in electrical and postal departments, workers in the petrol pumps, medical shops. The government has asked heads of various departments to prepare the list of eligible people under different categories. A committee under the Additional Chief Secretary to the Government has been constituted to oversee the implementation of the priority vaccination as per the notification. The Karnataka Tourism Society (KTS) which was in the forefront of demanding priority vaccination for workers in the travel and tourism sector in the State has welcomed the decision. “We are immensely grateful to the Government of Karnataka for the gesture and accepting our proposal. We firmly believe this is a positive gesture and would boost travellers' confidence to visit our state both for business and for leisure purposes,” said K Syama Raju, President and S. Mahalingaiah, Secretary of KTS in a statement. They said that they have already directed heads of different trade associations in the sector to prepare the list of eligible people within the age group of 18 and 45 on an urgent basis.

Read more

Negative RT-PCR report mandatory in Ladakh; rapid antigen test upon arrival

In a recent development, the Ladakh government has made it mandatory for people wanting to visit Ladakh to carry their negative RT-PCR test reports. However, the RT-PCR test result won’t be enough, as visitors will have to undergo a Rapid Antigen Test upon arrival. The Ladakh Tourism authorities took to Twitter and said: “The change in guidelines isn’t expected to cause any inconvenience to passengers. Those travelling by road or via air must, in addition to a negative COVID-19 test report, undergo rapid antigen testing on arrival in the Union Territory” Here are a certain rules you must know before: 1) Upon arrival in Ladakh, you will be sent to a nearby quarantine centre. 2) Negative RT-PCR test report (not more than 96 hours old) is mandatory. 3) Upon arrival, you will have to undergo a Rapid Antigen Test. 4) If a person tests positive, he/she will be isolated in a nearby quarantine centre. In January 2021, Pangong Tso in Ladakh was reopened for tourists six months after the deadly Galwan clashes between Indian and Chinese troops. The lake was said to be out of boundaries after the clashes in June 2020. Now, the Ladakh Tourism Department will issue inner line permits for tourists. At present, Ladakh has recorded 17407 COVID-19 positive cases and 178 deaths.

Read more

As UAE, Greece open safe travel corridor, flydubai announces summer routes to Santorini, Mykonos

UAE and Greece have opened a safe travel corridor for travellers who have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus. Accordingly, Dubai-based airline flydubai has now announced that it would be launching two new air routes in summer for passengers to travel from Dubai to Mykonos and Santorini in Greece. The carrier would be operating three weekly flights to these destinations between June 18 and September 29, it said in a statement. With this, flydubai will increase its number of seasonal routes to six. Apart from these two locations in Greek islands, the carrier will be operating flights to Turkey’s Bodrum and Trabzon, Tivat in Montenegro and Georgia’s Batumi. As per the agreement between the two countries for their safe corridor, the vaccinated travellers from both the countries have been allowed to travel to the other starting from May 18, and passengers who hold vaccination certificates issued by their respective health authorities do not need to quarantine upon arriving at the destination country. For these routes, flydubai said that Emirates would be codesharing with it. Giving further details about the route, it said that the fights would depart from Dubai International airport to Mykonos and Santorini on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays for the summer, and flights returning to Dubai from Mykonos would have a short halt in Santorini, while those returning to Dubai from Santorini would halt for a short duration in Mykonos. For both the Dubai-Mykonos sector and the Dubai-Santorini sector, passengers would be able to book a return business class flight starting from AED 8,000 (about Rs 1.58 lakh) and a return economy class flight starting from AED 2,500 (about Rs 50,000). Apart from offering carrier services, flydubai is also offering to book a complete flexible holiday package for interested tourists which would include flights, hotel stays as well as any other add-ons. Flydubai CEO Ghaith Al Ghaith said that there has been an increase in demand for travel as international travel restrictions are being lifted in various countries, and so, apart from Greece, the UAE has also added Bahrain and Serbia to its list of safe travel destinations. The carrier would also be starting operations of its flights to Georgia’s Batumi and Montenegro’s Tivat from June 25, while flights to Turkey’s Bodrum would begin on June 4. Meanwhile, flydubai will begin operating its flights to Turkey’s Trabzon from June 24.

Read more

Israel reopens borders to small groups of foreign tourists

Under an easing of coronavirus restrictions, the government went ahead with a plan to start letting in small groups of tourists from countries using vaccines it has approved. Foreign airlines are also resuming flights they suspended when Palestinian militants began rocket attacks on Israel this month. A ceasefire has now halted the fighting, helping the government meet Sunday's target date for starting the plan. But registration for the Tourism Ministry's plan opened only last week, so the number of visitors will initially be limited. "It is unlikely that the first groups will arrive before the beginning of June," a Tourism Ministry spokeswoman said. Tourism in 2019 hit a record high of 4.55 million visitors, contributing 23 billion shekels ($7.1 billion) to Israel's economy, mainly via small and mid-sized businesses. Under a pilot programme due to continue until June 15, Israel gave the green light to visits by 20 groups of between 5 and 30 tourists from countries including the United States, Britain and Germany. Another 20 groups were chosen to be on standby if any of the first 20 tour operators did not meet Israel's conditions. Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen said the ministry was working to allow more tourists to enter to "rehabilitate the tourism industry and bring hundreds of thousands of people back into the workforce". Israeli authorities believe that initially limiting tourism to small groups is the best way to monitor and contain the spread of Covid-19, especially new variants. The plan is to boost the number of groups in June and allow individual tourists to start visiting in July. Visitors will need to show negative PCR tests before flying and to undergo further tests on arrival. Israel has fully vaccinated about 55% of its population and Covid-19 cases have dropped sharply.

Read more