Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and President of HRAWI, has said that the association’s hospitality institute has launched new courses that were to start from March 2020. He says, “We have an institute called FIHM, which is short for FHRAI IHM in Greater Noida and keeping the demand for shorter courses in mind and so many new trends emerging, we have introduced short-term courses on FOSTAC and FSSAI that involve skill development. This is also something that the government is pushing. We have these courses ready and they were due to start immediately but now we have kept it on hold because of the unfortunate coronavirus situation. We will start them as soon as it comes under control. Apart from short-term courses, we also have the regular courses but we have stressed in these short courses as that’s the need of the hour. There will be guest lecturers and visiting facility for this as well.”

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, Air India has decided to cancel all its flights to Kuwait till April 30 and curtail services to various other countries, including Spain, France and Sri Lanka. The national carrier currently operates to Kuwait from Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Goa and Mumbai. Under the revised flight schedule, Air India reportedly would operate only two flights on the Delhi-Madrid-Delhi route up to April 30, in place of the existing three. The third flight would remain cancelled between March 17 and April 28. Also, of the seven flights per week between Delhi and Paris now, the carrier has cancelled four services between March 16 and March 30. The other three flights will remain operational up to April 30, he said. The air services to Frankfurt from New Delhi have also been reduced to three per week from seven now between March 16 and April 30 while the Mumbai-Frankfurt services have been restricted to twice a week from March 18 to April 30 from four flights now, according to reports. From March 15, Air India will operate only two flights per week on the Delhi-Tel Aviv-Delhi route as against four services at present. In fact, even these two services on the route will not operate on March 15 and 16.

Extending visa restrictions on three more countries, the government has asked people to refrain from travelling to France, Germany and Spain apart from Italy, Iran, South Korea, Japan and China. Issuing additional travel advisory in view of the COVID-19, the Health Ministry advised them to avoid non-essential travel abroad. Regular visas including e-Visas granted to all foreign nationals who have travel history to these countries on or after February 1 and who have not yet entered India also stands suspended. The advisory further said that all incoming international passengers returning to India should self-monitor their health and follow required Dos and Dont’s. Besides, all passengers having travel history to China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Thailand, Singapore, Iran, Malaysia, France, Spain and Germany are advised to undergo self-imposed quarantine for a period of 14 days from the date of their arrival. With regard to restrictions on visa, besides the already issued instructions, all regular visas which have been granted to nationals of France, Germany and Spain on or before 11th of this month and were these foreigners have not yet entered India, stands suspended.

Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ordered screening of passengers from four more countries- Nepal, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia in a bid to further strengthen precautionary measures to avert entry of Novel coronavirus (COVID-19). With this move, fliers from as many as 10 countries would be screened at Indian airports. The decision was taken after Rajiv Guaba, Cabinet Secretary on Saturday chaired a high-level meeting to review the status, actions taken and preparedness of States/UTs regarding management of Novel Coronavirus (COVID19). Hence, post the review, in addition to the universal screening as per earlier advisories, universal screening at airports is now being planned for flights from Kathmandu, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, the officials had said. Until Saturday, 21,805 passengers have been brought under community surveillance. In addition, 3,97,152 flight passengers and 9,695 travellers at sea ports have been screened.

Up to Jan 19, 2020, outbound travel bookings from China were 7.3% ahead compared to the equivalent period of last year, but a week later, they were 6.8% behind after travel restrictions were introduced owing to Coronavirus outbreak, according to ForwardKeys data. Bookings to China have declined from 4.5% ahead to 7.2% behind the previous year over the same time period. The epidemic has caused a substantial setback in flight bookings for the Chinese New Year period, 10th January – 6th February 2020.