Monday 9 August 2021

Flying from India to Dubai: Travel with GDRFA approval & negative Covid test results

Airline executives will check for GDRFA approvals and PCR test results, and not passengers vaccination status. Dubai residence visa holders ...

Airline executives will check for GDRFA approvals and PCR test results, and not passengers vaccination status.

Dubai residence visa holders can now travel from India to Dubai of they have received an entry approval from the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), in addition to negative Covid test results.

Airline representatives at airport check-in counters will be checking for the above requirements for Dubai bound travellers and not their two dose Covid vaccination status, the Emirates twitter handle says.

Responding to a customer question on Twitter, an Emirates Airline support staff said that the passenger must have a negative result of a PCR test taken within 48 hours of departure and a negative result of Rapid PCR test taken four hours prior to boarding the flight.

@EmiratesSupport Hello Good Evening as I have taken both dose of covishiled in India can i fly back to Dubai as i am residence of Dubai
— Peer (@Peer42437721) August 7, 2021

A higher official of Air India in the UAE also confirmed about this to newspapers: “As per instructions issued by civil aviation authorities in Dubai, for passengers to disembark in Dubai, only three documents are required for travelling person".

GDRFA approval
Negative RT-PCR test result taken 48 hours before departure
Rapid PCR test result from the airport.

A notice to travel agencies and other stakeholders has been issued by Indian carrier Vistara Airlines about this.

An airline source said to media: “According to the regulations passed down to us from the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, the airline’s responsibility is to check that Dubai-bound passengers have a valid GDRFA approval; and not their vaccination status.”

However, it is not immediately clear if airport check-in counter staff would confirm the vaccination status of passengers travelling to Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras Al Khaimah airports.

Passengers can apply for a GDRFA approval here.

Last week, the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) and National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA) announced that fully vaccinated residence visa holders from the six countries can return to the UAE as long as both jabs of their vaccine doses have been taken in the UAE.

Some categories of travellers — including healthcare workers, teachers, students, Expo 2020 workers, medical exemption, and humanitarian cases — can travel irrespective of their vaccination status.