New Delhi, August 25: Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday claimed that most much of the pre-Covid domestic air passenger traffic could be restored by Diwali, i.e. November 14. Puri stated that more flights from locations such as Mumbai and Kolkata will be allowed soon by the central government.

Speaking at an online Idea Exchange event of The Indian Express, the Civil Aviation Minister said, "The figure (of domestic passengers) yesterday was 98,800, so we have already reached 33% of pre-Covid numbers. We are increasing domestic passengers at the rate of 5,000 a week. With Mumbai hopefully having COVID numbers under control, the graph stable and coming down, I’m hoping that after the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, we will open up Mumbai more; Bengaluru, Kolkata will be a little less sporadic. We will be looking to touch the 50% mark before too long." Telangana Minister KT Rama Rao Meets Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Requests Him to Expedite Warangal Airport Project Under UDAAN Scheme.

With Mumbai restricting flights to 100 daily amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the flights to Kolkata from Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur, and Ahmedabad have been barred till August 31. Till now, the Civil Aviation Ministry had allowed only up to 45 per cent of the capacity for domestic airlines, before their pre-COVID capacities.

On the issue of resumption of international flights, Puri said, as the daily quoted, "I cannot anticipate whether countries will allow people from India in, but we have gone ahead and made the best out of a very difficult situation, navigated through turbulence, and today we have air bubbles with the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany. I have announced 13 more."

The Union Minister also claimed that India has initiated the system for passenger with an RT-PCR test done in the last 96 hours. He said, "In our case, we started with a mandatory 14-day quarantine — 7 days’ institutional and 7 days’ self-quarantine. Now we have introduced an innovation if you are carrying a certificate of an RT-PCR test done in the last 96 hours you can go through the green channel. We are opening up these things so that we move towards normalcy."

Earlier, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, India (CAPA India) had projected a financial loss of $4-4.5 billion for India’s airline industry in 2020-21 (April-March) due to the aviation restrictions.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 25, 2020 08:52 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).