Many set to leave for Canada stuck as Indian flights banned

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 23

Hundreds of Punjabis, who had got their bookings done and were set to fly to Canada in coming days, are distraught as the Canadian government has imposed a ban on flights from India for the next 30 days.

A large number of students and newly married women are among those who had got their bookings done which got cancelled owing to the ban orders due to Covid surge in India.

“We got calls from our relatives in Canada who informed us of the sudden orders passed there. The news did not just come as an emotional trauma for us but also affects us financially as we have paid huge sums on air tickets and also for mandatory provision for hotel quarantine,” rued an affected person.

Ranjeet Kaur from Sangrur, who was set to fly to Canada this evening, said, “I had got a Covid negative test report. I had got my hotel bookings done for the mandatory quarantine. My taxi to Delhi airport was booked and I was so excited to join my husband after a year of our marriage when this news brought everything to a standstill.”

Shaurya Arora, who has already completed his first semester in Bachelors in Business Administration on online mode from a Toronto-based college, said, “I was to board a flight from Amritsar to Toronto and was to leave from Jalandhar this afternoon. My first semester ended yesterday and I had planned to start the second semester after moving to Canada. But everything went haywire.”

Several immigration companies based in Jalandhar have said their business had come to a standstill all over again owing to the pandemic. “All main countries, including Canada, the UK, US and UAE, have banned flights from India. So the footfall in our offices has fallen,” said a travel agency.