India suspends flights from UK due to ‘prevailing situation’ with new Covid strain

India announced a temporary ban on flights from the UK until 31 December effective from midnight on Tuesday, spooked by a new and more transmissible strain of the coronavirus. The decision was taken after a meeting of health ministry officials earlier on Monday. “Considering the prevailing situation in (the) UK, the government of India has decided to suspend all flights originating from the UK to India,' India’s civil aviation ministry said. “Consequently flights from India to UK shall stand temporarily suspended... as a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from (the) UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22 December at 23:59 hours) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned,” according to a tweet posted by the official Twitter account of India’s civil aviation ministry.