(TAN): India is planning to establish travel bubbles with several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, reports said.
“Travel bubbles” are reportedly air bridges that link countries that agree to skip quarantine for travellers and allow free travel. The arrangement is usually made between countries that have managed to fully or partially contain the spread of COVID-19 to facilitate virus-free travel zones.
According to reports, India’s aviation ministry is looking to form the bubbles so that international travel can restart and foreign airlines can be allowed in India.
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The South Asian country is considering the travel bubbles with a number of countries, although it could create the first ones with countries where high demand for travel can be seen even during the outbreak, a report said.
“As we contemplate further opening up in response to demands, we are looking at the prospect of establishing individual bilateral bubbles, India-US, India-France, India-Germany, India-UK. These are all destinations where demand for travel has not diminished. Final decisions pursuant to negotiations are expected to be taken soon,” the aviation ministry was quoted by The Indian Express as saying.
The settling of travel bubbles could majorly help with the resumption of international travel, which has suffered in the past three months, reports said. However, it can be difficult to implement right away as India is currently struggling to control the pandemic. India is reportedly seeing over 15,000 cases every day, its highest daily rise. The number of cases crossed 473,000 including 14,894 deaths, as per data from Johns Hopkins University.
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Many other countries have considered forming travel bubbles in order to enable smooth travel through a safe corridor. Earlier this month, Thailand reportedly said it plans to create bubbles with countries that have relatively low infection rates, such as China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The country planned to open its borders in order to give its tourism sector, which endured massive losses after the country shut its borders in April, a nudge, reports said.
Australia and New Zealand are in talks of establishing a trans-Tasman bubble, which could be pushed back because of a spur in coronavirus cases, as per reports.
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