PANJIM: Goa will greet the season’s first charter tourists on Wednesday morning as a flight from Almaty in Kazakhstan will land with around 170 passengers.
Caper Travels, which is handling the charter flight from Kazakhstan, said the Air Asthana flight will land at Dabolim international airport at 7 am on December 15. The second flight is scheduled to arrive on December 16 while the third will land on December 18.
All passengers will be tested for COVID-19 before boarding the flight and upon arrival. There will be no quarantine, unless they test positive on arrival.
The airline, in the history of Goa, will be operating for the first time and the agency will have two Air Astana flights operating on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday every week while the operations are till March end.
Against the backdrop of the new omicron variant hitting around 61 countries so far, Goa’s tourism industry is hopeful that international visitors will salvage their business ruined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The State has otherwise been receiving an unprecedented influx of domestic tourists; however, tourists can be seen ignoring COVID-19 protocols and the authorities turning a blind eye to this.
