Emirates to resume pre-pandemic service frequency to India from Apr 1

As India is set to recommence scheduled international flight services from March 27, which remained suspended for the last two years, Gulf carrier Emirates on Friday announced it re-introduce its pre-pandemic service frequency across its destinations in the country from April 1.

Prior to the pandemic hitting the country in March 2020 and grounding overseas flight services, Emirates was operating 170 weekly flights to nine destinations, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, among others.

All these flights are being restored now, starting from April 1, as per the airline.

These 170 weekly flights include 35 services to Mumbai, 28 to Delhi, 24 to Bengaluru, 21 each to Chennai and Hyderabad, 14 to Kochi, 11 to Kolkata, nine to Ahmedabad and seven to Thiruvananthapuram, Emirates said in a statement.

The move comes on the back of the decision by the Indian government to restore international flights to and from the country in line with established bilateral agreements from the end of March, it said.

Emirates said it has also brought back its Airbus A380 on a daily basis between Dubai and Mumbai in March 2022, which has been deployed on its flight EK 500/ 501 (Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai).

In a related development, Sri Lankan national carrier SriLankan Airlines, in a statement, said it is set to celebrate the reopening of Indian skies on March 27 by doubling up to 88-weekly flights to India to match its pre-Covid-19 flight schedule.

The Colombo-based airline currently flies to nine Indian cities-- Delhi; Mumbai; Hyderabad; Trivandrum; Kochi; Chennai; Trichy; Madurai; and Bangalore.

The reopening of Indian skies would allow a passenger to book a SriLankan Airlines' flight from any of these Indian cities to any other online destination via Colombo, it said in the statement.

Similarly, passengers originating from non-Indian cities within the airline's network could connect to any of the nine Indian cities that the airline flies to via Colombo, it added.