New Delhi, March 17 (IANS): In response to the Centre's advisory to restrict international traffic from Turkey and Malaysia in the wake of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, airline major IndiGo will cancel its flight operations to these countries.

Accordingly, the airline will cancel its services between Delhi-Istanbul and Chennai-Kuala Lumpur from March 18, 2020 until March 31, 2020.

"The airline has already cancelled flights between Bangalore-Kuala Lumpur until March 31, 2020 and Delhi-Kuala Lumpur until April 30, 2020," the airline said in a statement.

"These are purely temporary and precautionary measures. We understand that these measures will cause inconvenience to our customers and we will be refunding the full amount to the impacted passengers," it said.

Earlier in the day, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in a circular: "Travel of passengers from Afghanistan, Philippines, Malaysia to India is prohibited with immediate effect."

"No flight shall take off from these countries to India after 15:00 hours Indian Standard Time (IST). The airline shall enforce this at the port of initial departure," the DGCA said.

"This instruction is a temporary measure and shall be in force till March 31, 2020 and will be reviewed subsequently," it added.