Almost the entire world is in lockdown mode and travel between countries has been suspended, because of the ongoing COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic. This has left citizens of many countries stranded abroad where they had travelled for various reasons. Repatriation efforts are on by many countries to facilitate their people to return home and the UK had earlier announced 21 flights to help British citizens in India to return home and these flights have been operating from April 8th and will go on till April 20th! Now, these additional 17 flights would make it a total of 38 chartered flights to help an overall number of about 20,000 stranded Britons in India. This announcement was made by the UK Minister of State for South Asia - Lord Tariq Ahmad.

The majority of the seats on these flights are to be allocated to people who have already registered and are on waitlists. There is heavy demand for seats on these flights and this repatriation is said to be a very complex operation which has the full cooperation of the Indian Government and local authorities. The additional 17 flights will be operated from Ahmedabad (April 20, 22, 24 and 26), Amritsar (April 21, 23, 25 and 27), Bangalore (April 23), Goa (April 20, 22 and 24), Delhi (April 21, 23, 25 and 27 and from Mumbai on April 26th! The British High Commission has stated that priority would be given for most vulnerable people, on these flights. Seats on these charter flights are expected to cost between 537 and 591 Pounds! The Indian Government has so far helped over 35000 foreign nationals from 48 countries to return to their nations, safely!