Tag Archives: UK

The government will remove the remaining restrictions on international travel for all passengers ahead of the Easter holidays, the Transport Secretary announced. From 4 am Friday 18 March, all COVID-19 travel restrictions will be lifted, including the passenger locator form (PLF) for arrivals into the UK, as well as all tests for passengers who do not qualify as vaccinated. This change, therefore, removes the need for unvaccinated passengers to take a pre-departure test and a day 2 post-arrival test. 

Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, has shared that e-Tourist visa website has been opened for foreigners, for 30 day validity, which will be counted in the free 5 lakh visa granted by GoI. However, he said that e-visa for UK and Canada has still not been opened, and they still need to apply for paper visa. In addition, the Government should also start scheduled international flights.

Fully vaccinated Indians travelling to the United Kingdom will not be quarantined from October 11, the British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, announced on October 7. Covishield or another UK approved vaccine now accepted by the UK government.”I’ll be cutting 47 destinations from our red list including South Africa, with just 7 countries and territories remaining banned, all others will be included in the “rest of world” category. I’m also making changes so travellers visiting England have fewer entry requirements, by recognising those with fully-vaccinated status from 37 new countries and territories including India, Turkey and Ghana, treating them the same as UK fully vaccinated passengers”added Rt Hon Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport, UK

UK has given a nod for Covishield being accepted as approved vaccine for inbound travellers to the country. Under a new set of guidelines, UK Govt has accepted a full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body in some countries. “Formulations of the 4 listed vaccines, such as AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda, qualify as approved vaccines,” it said. The guideline says, “From 4am Monday 4 October, you will qualify as fully vaccinated if you are vaccinated either under an approved vaccination programme in the UK, Europe, USA or UK vaccine programme overseas or with a full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan or the United Arab Emirates (UAE). You must have had a complete course of an approved vaccine at least 14 days before you arrive in England.”

In a reciprocal reaction, the Indian government has withdrawn the e-visa facility for the citizens of Canada and the United Kingdom. According to a senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) official, post-Covid, UK and Canada have posed a lot of restrictions over the entry of Indian nationals in their country and many times, travellers have to face inconvenience despite several requests were made to the concerned embassies to take up and matter and resolve it. “The e-visa facility to UK and Canada citizens have been withdrawn from the first week of August this year. Now, they have to apply for a regular sticker visa at the Indian embassy. Tourist visa is already suspended and people visiting India under other categories of visa now have to apply for regular sticker visas,” said the official. Earlier, the e-visa facility was denied to Chinese nationals following the Galwan Valley incident in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in violent clashes with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel in June last year.

Johan Lundgren, the CEO of easyJet, does not believe the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus to be particularly damaging to Europe’s summer travel season for the year. While the UK continues to impose travel restrictions for most destinations that are said to have had cases of the Delta variant, some other European countries are also following suit. Lundgren has added that the industry’s survival could be at risk if it had to endure a second summer of restricted travel.

The latest air ticket data analysed by ForwardKeys reveals that comparing April-September 2021 against the same six months in 2019, a significant shift in source markets is evident. The USA, which used to account for 31% of actual air tickets into India pre-COVID has doubled. The UK, a traditional source market, has shrunk by more than half to only 6%.

The TAAI UP and UK chapter visited UPSTDC and met Director General Ravi Kumar to discuss promoting UP as a wholesome tourist destination for domestic as well as international passengers.

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

Venkataramani Sumantran has been appointed as an Independent Director on the Board of IndiGo, for a period of five years. He is currently Chairman and Managing Director of Celeris Technologies and has held this position since 2014. Sumantran has earlier served as Executive Vice-Chairman of Hinduja Automotive, UK; Executive Director of Tata Motors; and Director, Advanced Engineering in GM-Europe, among other roles.