Norms for chartered flights relaxed

In A move aimed at providing a major thrust to tourist charter flight operations in the country, the Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to do away with restrictions on the duration of stay of foreign tourists coming on chartered flights. The government has also decided to remove the 2:1 condition under which a tour operator organising outbound charter flights was bound to organise twice the number as inbound operations.

These amendments are mainly aimed at freeing up tour operators so as to encourage them to start more operations and also to attract more foreign tourists. However, while making these changes the government has retained the norm of allowing tourist charter flights only for Inclusive Tour Package ITP. An ITP has been defined as a round-trip for a pre-determined period for one or more places charging a consolidated price.

Earlier, tourists coming to India on foreign ITP charter flights could not stay less than a week and not more than four weeks. Similarly, tourists going out of India on ITPs could not stay abroad for less than a week and more than four weeks. That condition, too, has been scrapped. The government has further relaxed the condition over the duration in which a tour operator flying a charter flight into India had to furnish to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA names and description of tourists within three working days of their arrival in India for counting their numbers for outbound charters.