Under the fourth phase of the Vande Bharat Mission, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has announced that Air India will operate a total of 114 flights while IndiGo and GoAir will fly 457 and 41 flights respectively between July 3 and July 15. The Indian government has launched Vande Bharat Mission, the largest operation to repatriate Indians who had been stranded across the globe because of COVID-19 related restrictions. Many international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the sources, Air India will fly 114 flights to India from 17 countries, Canada, the US, the UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Thailand, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Myanmar, Japan, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

Air India released a statement through its Twitter handle. The statement reads as "Air India will operate 31 flights between India and USA and 9 flights between India and Canada from July 3 to July 15 under Vande Bharat Mission. Tickets can be booked through the Air India website only effective 8 pm on June 29, equivalent to New York and Toronto (EDT 10:30 am of June 29), Chicago (CDT 9:30 am of June 29) and San Francisco (PDT 7:70 am of June 29)."

The Civil Aviation Ministry tweeted as, “Private Airlines will have significant participation in the fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission. Among others, IndiGo will fly 238 flights from Qatar & 219 flights from Kuwait; while GoAir will operate 41 flights from Kuwait. Number of private carriers, flights & destinations likely to increase.”

272 chartered flights to and from various countries will be operated by Air India in the third phase, which started on June 10 and will end on July 4. The first phase began on May 7. On June 23, the Civil Aviation Ministry stated that it wanted to establish individual bilateral bubbles with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, enabling each country's airlines in a pact to fly international passenger flights.

Earlier, the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) banned all flight operations in the country till April 14 due to novel coronavirus pandemic. The government started the services of scheduled domestic passenger flights from May 25th. Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on June 20 said that the government is sketching out strategies to start scheduled international passenger flights in mid-July.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated that it is extending the suspension of scheduled international passenger flights in the country until July 15 but added that a few international scheduled services on selected routes may be allowed.