New Covid strain: India-UK flights to resume from January 8 in restricted manner

New Delhi [India], January 1 : The flight operations between India and the United Kingdom, which have been banned due to the emergence of new strain of coronavirus, will be resumed from January 8 till 23, said Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday.
"It has been decided that flights between India and the UK will resume from January 8, 2021. Operations till January 23 will be restricted to 15 flights per week each for carriers of two countries to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only," the Minister said in a tweet.
On December 30, the Ministry had decided to extend the temporary suspension of flights to and from the UK till January 7.
The government has imposed a ban on flights coming to India from the UK with effect from December 22 in the view of a new strain of COVID-19 detected in the UK.
According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a total of 20 people have been found in the country with the mutant variant of SARS- CoV-2 virus found in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Government of India extended the suspension of scheduled commercial international flights till January 31, 2021 in the wake of COVID-19. However, restrictions shall not apply on special flights and international air cargo operations approved by the Director General of Civil Aviation.