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After the government lifted travel restrictions last year, a host of foreign destinations in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Far East have opened up to Indian travellers like never before.
The post-pandemic bounty includes non-stop flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Warsaw, Helsinki, Lagos, Nairobi, Tbilisi, Minsk, Tashkent, Almaty, Dushanbe, Baku, Basra, Jakarta, Yangon, Da Nang, Phu Quoc, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Earlier, passengers had to hop, skip and jump across flights, transit through airports in the Middle East and Europe to reach these places.
What opens up for the tourist now are 7 to 9-hour-long direct flights to scores of not-so-pricey, not-so-crowded holiday destinations, UNESCO world heritage sites and regions that offer a choice of mountains, valleys, villages and towns with names that demand a Google rescue to figure out their geographic location and pronunciation.
The new route will greatly benefit travellers from Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Kochi, as they can now connect to Tehran via Kuwait seamlessly. This addition further strengthens Jazeera Airways’ presence in Iran, as the airline already operates flights to the cities of Mashhad and Shiraz. Jazeera also provides connections through Kuwait to popular tourist destinations like Istanbul, Bodrum, Baku, Cairo, and Sharm El Sheikh.
In 2015, when Sayoni Singhal and her friends holidayed in Poland, they flew to Warsaw on Emirates via Dubai and Brussels on a journey that stretched over 25 hours; now the trip can be made in one-third the time. “The LOT Polish flight from Mumbai to Warsaw, launched last June has a duration of less than eight hours. It’s now the shortest non-stop entry from India into a Schengen country,” said Subhash Motwani, founder of Namaste Tourism, an experiential travel firm. These direct flights to Warsaw have increased footfall from India. “We’ve seen a 20-25% increase in visa applications for tourist and business travel this year compared to the first half of 2022,” said Damian Irzyk, consul general of Poland. Among foreign carriers flying from niche destinations to Mumbai are LOT Polish, Finnair, VietJet, Vietnam Airlines and Nigeria’s Air Peace. Finnair is set to discontinue Mumbai-Helsinki flights this month. Among those flying to Delhi or plan to are Myanmar Airlines, Vietnam Airline, Azerbaijan Airline, Italy’s ITA Airways, Belarusian Airlines. At the Indian end is IndiGo with a busy line-up: the Nairobi (Kenya) launch is scheduled on August 5, Jakarta (Indonesia) on August 7, Tbilisi on August 8, Baku (Azerbaijan) on August 11, Almaty (Kazakhstan) on September 5 and Tashkent (Uzbekistan) on September 6.
Non-stop flights are typically priced higher though. While launch fares are generally low (Vietjet offered cheap deals; IndiGo return tickets are priced from INR 23,000 for Tbilisi to INR 31,000 for Baku), over time, increased demand coupled with low supply-most airlines operate twice or thrice a week-will lead to a hike in fares.
It seems the destinations compensate to an extent. “These are great value for money destinations. For instance: if you can self-drive or take local intercity buses then you can have a 11 to 12-day holiday covering Poland, Finland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on less than Euro 150 per person per day while staying in 3-star hotels,” Motwani said. Ditto with other countries.
“International airfares are currently high the world over,” said an airline official, requesting anonymity. “What these flights bring is ready accessibility to regions that earlier took over a day or more to reach. The point here is connectivity, direct flights that give that option to the Indian traveler, that bring tourist footfalls to destinations, say the way Malaysian AirAsia did in Asia-Pacific or Ryanair and Easyjet did in Europe,” he added.
Investment banker Sandeep Aggarwal (53) flew to Warsaw with his family in June on a 9-day trip. “I was pleasantly surprised by Krakow. The sheer architectural beauty, vibes of that place, and party-like atmosphere created a magical holiday. It was like any other major European destination without those teeming crowds.” It helped that early June is not the peak tourist season. “We walked around 6-8 kms a day,” said Aggarwal, an avid traveler who has visited 55 countries. But an often-asked question is, how safe are these niche destinations? “We felt extremely safe, even when out and about, late at night,” said Aggarwal.
Irzyk said: “Poland is one of the safest countries in the world. No robbery, mugging, or riots here.” Motwani said: “These destinations are definitely safer than some of the mainstream destinations.”
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