With the ban on flights from India to the UAE for 10 days from Sunday, there is a sudden rush of passengers, mainly expats, wanting to return to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other parts of the UAE.
Airline sources here confirm the rush but say that only those who have Covid tests done 48 hours before the flight and have a negative report, will be allowed to fly to the UAE.
An agency report cited a woman passenger who is scheduled to travel from Kolkata to Dubai on Saturday 2am, making desperate attempts to advance the departure by a day to avoid getting caught up in last-minute hitches.
“I just wanted to make sure whether I will be allowed to board on my existing ticket as April 24 should mean the midnight separating Friday and Saturday,” she told an agency.
“When all my calls went unanswered, I had to take a quick call and make a new booking for a Friday morning flight.”
India-UAE is one of the busiest routes globally, especially from Mumbai and Delhi to Dubai. Thousands of Indians also take flights to cities in the US, Canada and Europe via Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They include Indians living in those countries or their relatives back home.
And for tens of thousands of Indians, especially celebrities and the affluent, the UAE is a major holiday destination and the flights are usually packed with them. There are also hundreds of business barons who fly regularly to Dubai and other parts of the UAE.
But the ban on flights to India is unlikely to impact many of them, as they have the option of taking private jets or chartering flights. Kanika Tekriwal, founder and CEO, JetSetGo, was quoted by the Times of India as saying that she had received a hundred queries about chartering flights to the UAE, within three hours of the announcement of the ban.
Chartering business jets or mid-sized aircraft costs around Rs3 million to Rs4 million from Mumbai or Dubai to the UAE and back, and many well-off Indians and corporates regularly opt for these services.
Resident juridical persons are subject to corporate tax in the UAE for their worldwide income; A natural person having business revenue more than Dh1 million in a Gregorian calendar year are subject to the tax for their world-wide income related to the business in the UAE
business technology review1 hour ago
Australia have not beaten India in a test series since 2015 and now face an uphill task to do so over the remaining matches
cricket1 hour ago
Investment platform seeks to bring UAE equities to global audience
markets1 hour ago
Cummings briefly served as showrunner for the ABC sitcom The Conners for which Sabrina Carpenter auditioned
entertainment2 hours ago
The singer received minutes-long standing ovation during the hugely popular Eras Tour
entertainment2 hours ago
The singer did so on the final night of her Las Vegas residency
entertainment2 hours ago
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said 'such criminal plans should not be overlooked'
asia2 hours ago
Nearly a month after the October 26 vote, won by the governing Georgian Dream party, political turmoil continues in the post-Soviet country
europe3 hours ago