Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said India will focus on creating air travel bubbles with countries to transport international passengers.

New Delhi: Till the time international flights get back to its pre-Covid numbers, Union Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said that India will focus on creating air travel bubbles with countries to transport international passengers.

Hardeep PuriPuri said that he has established individual bilateral bubbles with France and US that will allow airlines of each country in the pact to operate international flights. The minister also said that a similar kind of bubble will soon be permitted for flights to and from the UK and Germany.

Puri said that Air France will be operating 28 flights between Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Paris from July 18 to August 1. He also said that American carrier United Airlines will be flying 18 flights between India and the US from July 17 to July 31.

FlightAn air bubble is a bilateral arrangement with a set of regulations and restrictions in which the carriers of the two countries can operate international flights.

Scheduled international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic. After nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the government resumed scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25.