German airline offers to fly empty planes to India to ferry passengers in outbound flights

As international travel continues to remain suspended in India, German airlines Lufthansa Group has offered to fly empty planes to India to ferry passengers to destinations across Europe. As per a senior government official, Lufthansa has offered carry outbound passengers from the country since there is a high demand from people, especially the non-resident Indians (NRIs) who have been stranded in the country after all international flights were suspended back on May 23.

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“Lufthansa group (which operates airline brands like Lufthansa, SWISS, etc) have offered to fly ferry (empty) flights to India and carry passengers only on its outbound flights to destinations in Europe. A decision is yet to be taken on this matter,” said a senior government official to news agency PTI.

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While all outbound flights remain suspended in India, the government has been carrying out its massive repartition operation-- the Vande Bharat Mission since May 7 to bring back the Indians stranded across the globe amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Through its mission, it has ferried over 58,867 Indian citizens back to the country through 423 flights. The government has also flown some outbound flights to the countries such as the US through Air India ferrying back NRIs who were stranded here.

Recently, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had stated that the government was still taking a decision on resumption of international passenger flights. Many countries across the world have also suspended inbound flights amid the pandemic scare.

The offer from the German Airlines group comes at a time when Coronavirus cases across India are on a rise with airports showing a history of being hubs of early spreading of infection. Airports at major metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi which witnessed some of the largest air traffic have been reeling under the effects of Coronavirus being particularly hard-hit. Mumbai's tally has crossed 52,000 while Delhi's has crossed 31,000 confirmed cases and his expected to spike massively over the next 4 weeks. More than 2.46 lakh people have been infected and around 7,400 people have died due to COVID-19 in India, as per the latest figures.

(With Agency Inputs)

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