On March 23, 2020, all the scheduled international passenger services were suspended in India due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, some special flights were given permission to operate under the Vande Bharat Mission from May 2020. Several air bubble arrangements were created between countries to ease the evacuation process.
Things were easing gradually but a new strain was found that was much more dangerous and contagious. So once again, DGCA had to ban all the scheduled international commercial passenger flight services to and from India till May 31, 2021.