Tag Archives: France

To mark the reopening of Notre Dame after 5 years, a 3-day reopening ceremony is planned from 7-9 Dec 2024. “There will be a worldwide telecast of the reopening ceremony. Individual visitors can visit the church from 17 December onwards and it will be open to groups only by June 2025,” Olivier Josse, Secretaire General, Notre Dame. 

The next edition of Rendezvous France is scheduled to take place on 1-2 April 2025 in Lyon. This year, the country is all set to offer a sports and cultural extravaganza with the Olympic Games Paris 2024. “We are expecting over 100 million international visitors,” said Caroline Leboucher, MD, Atout France.

In a tweet, Ministry of Civil Aviation has announced that passengers travelling under air bubble arrangements with France, Germany & Netherlands can further travel to EU/Schengen area, South American & African countries. Travellers of bubble arrangement between India-Qatar & India-UAE can further travel to South America & Africa. Passengers travelling under Air Bubble arrangement between India & Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda & Tanzania can also travel to any country in Africa. Passengers travelling between India- Ukraine can travel to and from CIS countries, except Russia. Nepalese & Bhutanese passengers along with Indian nationals have been allowed to travel under air bubble arrangements with Ethiopia, France, Germany, Iraq, Kenya, Netherlands, Qatar, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ukraine & UAE.

Air India will operate additional flights between India and the UK from December 11, 2020 until March 27, 2021. Also, the national carrier will operate additional flights between India & France from 3rd January to 22nd March, 2021 under the air bubble agreement. The UK flight will be Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham every Friday and Birmingham-Amritsar-Delhi every Saturday. Bookings are now open. These flights are in addition to the existing flights operating between India and the UK.  The new Delhi-Paris flights will be operating four days a week in the new year – from Delhi to Paris on Thursdays and Sundays, and from Paris to Delhi on Mondays and Fridays

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 British Prime Minister and President Macron have stressed the need for close bilateral, European and international cooperation in the fight against Covid-19. No quarantine measures would apply to travellers coming from France to the UK at this stage; any measures on either side would be taken in a concerted and reciprocal manner. The leaders spoke about the need to manage the risk of new transmissions arising from abroad, as the rate of coronavirus decreases domestically. In this regard, the Prime Minister and the President agreed to work together in taking forward appropriate border measures. This cooperation is particularly necessary for the management of our common border. A working group between the two governments will be set up to ensure this consultation throughout the coming weeks.

A survey conducted by International Air Transport Association (IATA) at the beginning of April reveals that as many as 47% of air passengers surveyed wished to begin travelling within a month or two (by May or June). The survey, conducted across 11 countries (including India), also revealed that at least 4 per cent still continued being sceptical and did not wish to travel for the foreseeable future. Respondents for the survey were from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the Unites States.

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.

The percentage shares of top 15 source countries availing e-Tourist Visa facilities during November, 2019 were highest from UK (12.22%), followed by USA (10.75%), China (8.06%), Russian Fed (7.85%), Malaysia (5.71%), France (4.61%),Germany (4.60%), Australia (4.16%), Canada (3.85%), Thailand (3.25%), Italy (2.32%), Singapore (1.87%), Spain (1.64%), Vietnam (1.50%) and Israel (1.40%), reveals Ministry of Tourism.

Heavy rain and winds from Storm Fabien brought the island of Corsica to a standstill with flight cancellations during the Christmas holidays. The airport in Ajaccio remained closed on Monday due to flooding on the runway. Images showed severe flooding at the airport located on the French island’s western coast. Air Corsica cancelled 50 flights and said that they were working to create an airbridge in northern Corsica (Haute-Corse). They said they were working to add 51 flights to France and Belgium from Bastia in Haute-Corse. Mainland France also suffered heavy rain and winds.