Why Vistara is unravelling

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Editor's note: The customer thought she had heard it wrong. “Sorry?” the customer, whom we will call DS, asked the executive at the counter. “We have to cancel your ticket,” the executive repeated, without a blink of an eye.  It was 30 December. DS was booked to fly to Dubai to be with her friends and relatives to usher in the New Year. But standing at the Vistara counter in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, she could see the worst fears of a traveller coming true.  DS, the executive said, was a US passport holder and despite her status as an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI), she couldn’t board the flight. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s notification for bubble flights (operated as part of bilateral arrangements between countries in the absence of scheduled international flights that remain suspended because of the pandemic), only citizens of the UAE, India, Nepal and Bhutan are allowed to board flights to any of the emirates.  DS was confused. “There wasn’t any communication of this when one booked the ticket. And I had already travelled …