Emirates to resume India flights. What are vaccine, PCR rules for entry?

Emirates, the flag carrier of the UAE state of Dubai, will resume its full flight services from India on June 23. The UAE had suspended all incoming services from India from April 24 on account of the COVID-19 situation, with people who had travelled to India 14 days prior to entry being barred from the country. Only UAE nationals, diplomats and holders of the UAE golden visas were allowed to fly back to the UAE.

Last week, Emirates had confirmed services from India would stay suspended until July 6. Etihad, the flag carrier for Abu Dhabi, is yet to announce resumption of flights from India.

The decision to restart flights from India came after revision of rules by the Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management in Dubai. The panel ruled that fully vaccinated residents of the UAE be allowed to return. In addition to India, Emirates will also resume flights to South Africa and Nigeria this week.

The media office of the Dubai government on Saturday published guidelines for those people intending to travel to Dubai from India. The guidelines state that only those passengers with a valid residence visa who have received two doses of a UAE-approved vaccine are allowed to travel to Dubai. The vaccines allowed in the UAE currently are Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik V and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Consequently, Indian nationals who have received doses of Covaxin are unlikely to be eligible to be allowed entry to the UAE soon.

The Dubai government guidelines state:

1. They (passengers) should also present a negative test certificate from a PCR test taken 48 hours before departure; UAE nationals are exempted from this requirement.

2. Only QR-coded negative PCR test certificates are accepted.

3. Furthermore, passengers from India are required to undergo a rapid PCR test four hours prior to departure to Dubai. They must also undergo another PCR test on arrival in Dubai.

4. In addition, following arrival, passengers from India should undergo institutional quarantine until they receive their PCR test result, which is expected within 24 hours. UAE citizens and diplomats are exempted from institutional quarantine.

The resumption of flights to Dubai will come as a breather to thousands of NRIs stranded in India as well as those travellers who had been intending to fly via Dubai as a transit point for onward flights to Europe, Africa and the Americas.