The Indian government still doesn’t have an air transport bubble arrangement with South Korea even after 23 months into the Covid-19 pandemic. This has hindered most Indians working in South Korea from travelling back home to visit their families. Direct flights between the two countries were suspended in March 2020.There are close to 14,000 Indians working and studying in the South-East Asian country, many of whom cannot afford the travel back home without the air bubble arrangement. Earlier, travelers paid between Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 for a round trip without layover to India, but now they are forced to pay between Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.2 lakh for a round trip with a layover of sometimes 11 hours. This means that a couple with one child taking a round trip to India has to spend around Rs 3.5-5 lakhs.Transport bubbles are temporary arrangements between two countries aimed at restarting commercial passenger services because regular international flights have been suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the East Asian and South-East Asian countries, India has transport bubble arrangements with only Singapore and Japan.India has such arrangements with 40 countries including Australia, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Canada, Ethopia, Finland, France, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Maldives, Russia, Netherlands, Nigeria, UK, USA, UAE, Tanzania, Switzerland and Sri Lanka.Most of the passengers are left with only two options — booking seats on the chartered flights by Asiana, which are extremely expensive. These always stand a chance of cancellation because of the sheer number of passengers who have booked the flight, in addition to restrictions for Indians, if they want to board this flight from India. The second option is to fly Emirates or Qatar Airways transiting via Dubai or Doha with an extremely long layover period.
Source link
