Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, has said that they will be able to resume 55-60 per cent of domestic flights by Diwali. Speaking at a press conference, he said, “We are assuming that by the time Diwali comes this year, we would have 55-60 per cent of pre-COVID domestic flights operating in India.”

Efforts put in by TAAI have finally borne fruit as the government has now permitted travel agents to book Vande Bharat flights. “We appreciate Air India, MoCA and NITI Aayog for supporting our initiatives, and look forward to more compliances to support the struggling industry,” says Jyoti Mayal, President, TAAI. As of now, flights to USA, Germany (FRA) and France (CDG) have been announced in the coming phase.

Thomas Cook India has signed an agreement with dnata Travel to operate as the Travel Management Company (TMC) to service dnata’s customers as it closes its TMC operation in India. The transition will be completed in the next few weeks. Mahesh Iyer, Executive Director & CEO, Thomas Cook India, says, “Our first focus will be ensuring continuity of service needs.”

HVS ANAROCK’S report titled ‘India Hotels Outlook’ that studies the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian hotel sector estimates that assuming recovery from COVID-19 begins in H2 2020, occupancy would then recover only by year 2022, touching 66%, while rates would recover by year 2023.

Looking at key trends and changes in booking habits for India and South Asia as studied by ForwardKeys, India continues to be the most favoured destination among key long-haul markets of United Kingdom, USA, Germany, UAE and Australia, repeatedly featuring in the top two choice of each.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Civil Aviation, has said that international operations will begin in air bubbles now, which will be active with a few countries including France, US and the UAE. He further revealed that air bubbles will operate for a while and only then will regular international operations begin. “Negotiations are at an advanced stage with at least three countries. We formally signed for Air France operating 28 flights from Paris to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru between 18th July and 1st August. Apart from that we have an agreement with United Airlines to operate 18 flights between 17th and 31st July. We have requests from Germany also, and the negotiations with Lufthansa are almost done. Some details have to be worked out,” he said.

The re-opening of Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport has been suspended indefinitely. The airport was scheduled to re-open in August, but due to the rising COVID-19 cases in the country, operations and repatriation flights have been halted for the time being.

South Asia remains the least affected region within APAC, reveals Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys. He says that while the North East Asia region has taken the brunt of the crisis with bookings down by 83%, the impact on South Asia has been significantly less and the specific results in South Asia reveal that bookings are down by 60.2%.

Singapore and Bengaluru-based air retailing and payments platform Mystifly has raised US $3.3 M in Pre-Series B financing round from Recruit. This investment will help Mystifly to continue strengthening its product and technology, data science and Machine Learning capabilities, as well as address airline payments inefficiency while weathering the COVID-19 storm.

An HVS ANAROCK report on the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian hotel sector pegs the total revenue loss for the sector in 2020 at Rs89,813 crore, with the maximum to be borne by the unorganised segment.