German carrier Lufthansa on Monday announced the commencement of its flight services to Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru from Frankfurt from August 13, under a “bilateral agreement” between the governments.
The company will also run flight services on the Munich-Delhi route.
The European carrier is already operating flights out of India to its two hubs—Frankfurt and Munich—for the past several months, according to a release.
“Following a bilateral agreement between India and Germany, inbound passenger flights to India will be reinstated from August 13,” Lufthansa said in the release.
With the operations of flights from Germany into India, Lufthansa will be able to help people return to India and enable business travel as the world gradually begins to open up, said George Ettiyil, Lufthansa Group’s senior director for South Asia sales.
Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since late March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, various evacuation and chartered flights are being currently operated to fly back stranded Indians in various countries and also transport foreign nationals, who are stuck in India, to their countries.
Lufthansa in the release said since July it has made available PCR coronavirus test facility to the Indian customers at Frankfurt and Munich airports.
“Both coronavirus test centres at our hubs in Frankfurt and Munich provide customers the opportunity to avoid being quarantined when arriving in Germany, with a negative coronavirus test in their hand,” said Ettiyil.
India had last month announced the establishment of individual bilateral bubbles with France and the US that will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights and had said a similar arrangement with Germany and the UK was also in the offing.
An air travel bubble is a bilateral arrangement with a set of regulations and restrictions in which the airlines of the two countries can operate international flights.
