There was a bit of that initially but doesn’t appear to be the primary motivator at this point in time. There is a legitimate need to restrict amount of incoming traffic because of the increased processing at arrivals. Otherwise, the crowding there can lead to clusters even if just one person is spreading. Vax and testing won’t catch 100%. So, a purely screening logistics based capacity controls are needed until that risk is reduced. That is DGCA’s job and the reason for banning full schedule flights.

The bubble arrangements are orthogonal to this. Likely a different department doing these and seem to be motivated by political, commercial considerations. Within the capacity they want to enable, these arrangements can hand out and receive “favors” in a “bilateral trade”. Almost all of the bubble restrictions seem to implicitly favor AI direct flights as the “safest” (in terms of being allowed to fly) for Indian nationals and bars third countries from competing via hubs in their countries. This has nothing to do with Covid risk for India or capacity limits. In fact, it seems opposite since Indian nationals are allowed to come in via transit points (e.g.,London) not allowed for them to transit to fly out. Then there is the codeshare loopholes which make no sense. The “at risk” category is also subject to political or other considerations since they don’t appear to be based entirely on spread in those countries.

https://www.civilaviation.gov.in/en/...nsport-bubbles