Many Indians not in favour of resuming overseas flights: Survey

About three out of every four Indians are against a full-fledged reopening of international flights from later this month, as several countries are experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases, showed a survey by a social media platform. The Localcircles survey received 12,618 responses from citizens residing in 294 districts. Of the respondents, 44% were from the country's top cities. The survey was conducted after the government said regular international flights from India would resume on March 27.

The announcement was made after India's Covid cases fell below 5,000 a day and test positivity came under 0.5%.

While a number of countries opened their skies after the scare over the Omicron-led Covid wave eased, those like Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Australia are seeing hospitalisations due to a sub-lineage of the Omicron variant.


About 25% of the respondents backed resumption of commercial international flights from all countries as planned, according to the survey. Another 41% suggested starting commercial flights only with countries that have a TPR of less than 5%, while 14% put a TPR of under 2% as the condition. About 18% sought postponement of the decision, while 2% did not have an opinion, according to Localcircles.

"On an aggregate basis, 73% of citizens are against restarting full schedule commercial international flights from March 27, 2022, in light of the BA.2.2 and related mutations," it said in a news release.