The Indian Government will be extending flight suspensions due to the COVID-19 outbreak within its borders. Thus, according to its Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), all domestic and international flights will remain suspended through May 3rd.News was delivered using various channels - including on Twitter, where the DGCA put out a tweet with an image of the latest circular:

The flight suspensions so far

Flights in India have been suspended since late March, leaving thousands of travelers stranded, unable to get into or out of the country. Furthermore, with domestic flights suspended as well, many Indian residents are unable to get to their homes, despite being within the borders of their own country. Indian Rail services are suspended as well.

This latest suspension-extension isn't the first. In fact, at the end of March, the flight ban was extended to April 14th. As India's case count continues to climb, re-opening travel now would only exacerbate the situation.

In fact, as the country recently broke through the 10,000-case milestone, it also saw its highest number of new cases in a single day yesterday, of 1,248. This is 40-50% more cases than any other previous day in the country.

Some flights continue to take off

While all regular commercial passenger flights are suspended, aircraft are still taking off and landing at airports in India. In fact, the country has allowed other nations like the US, UK and Germany to conduct special repatriation flights in order to collect stranded citizens.

Indian Express reports that Air India has also extended its services to countries such as Germany, UK and France for repatriation flight services. In fact, we saw the nation's flag carrier make an arrangement with US carrier Delta Air Lines. In this situation, Air India is providing domestic connections for Indian passengers while Delta operates the long-haul US-India flights. The first of these flights took off last Saturday, carrying 287 Americans from Mumbai to Atlanta.

Monitoring the situation

While everyone in India (and the rest of the world) would like to have a specific date when travel restrictions will end, it is still too difficult to tell. Numerous health officials have said that they would like to see the number of new cases decline (or even stop) for several weeks before resuming certain 'normal' aspects of daily life.

Indian Express reports that after April 20, there will be graded relaxations in areas based on epidemiological assessments. Indian Prime Minister Modi added that restrictions could be reimposed later if there were any fresh cases of COVID-19 found in these areas.

Indeed, if resumption to 'normal life' is not managed carefully, governments and regions could face the risk of subsequent waves and outbreaks.

Has India's travel ban affected you this month? Share your story with us in the comments.