Image Source: India TV

The Air India website received an 'overwhelming' demand form travelers as it opened its portal for the booking for 300 international flights to destinations in countries including the US and the UK.

On Saturday morning, Air India said that it had received 22,000 bookings till 8 am. The website experienced 7-8 times more activity than it expected.

In a tweet Air India said, "#FlyAI: Bookings for select destinations in USA, Canada, UK & Europe etc under Phase3 of #MissionVandeBharat opened at 5pm today. Around 60 million hits received till 7pm on our website & 1700 seats sold through website alone in 2 hrs. Bookings continue & tickets are being issued."

#FlyAI: sale of tickets commenced at 5pm yesterday for select destinations in USA,Canada,UK & Europe under Phase3 of #VBM. Our website experienced 6-7 times more activity & over 22000 seats hv been sold overall till 8am. More seats to more destinations will be added in due course

— Air India (@airindiain) June 6, 2020

The national carrier opened its bookings at 5 PM and it posted the following on Twitter at 6.08 PM on Friday: “Demand for seats from India on flights planned under Mission Vande Bharat-3 is overwhelming. Sectors/ Flights are being opened in a systematic manner for booking, on the website.”