Domestic Flight in India Allowed to Increase Operations From Existing to 60% to 70% of Pre-COVID Levels, Says Hardeep Singh Puri

New Delhi, November 11: The government on Wednesday increased the flight operation capacity to 70 percent. At present, the airlines can operate up to 60 percent of their capacity. According to a tweet by ANI, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said that domestic operations recommenced with 30,000 passengers on May 25 when domestic flights resumed and have reached 2.06 lakhs on November 8. Puri said that Ministry of Civil Aviation is now allowing domestic carriers to increase their operations from existing 60 percent to 70 percent of the pre-COVID approved capacity.

Earlier this month, the government had announced an extension on the fare bands within which the airlines have to operate. The fare bands have now been extended up to February 24, 2021 by the Civil Aviation Ministry. These fare bands came into force with effect from May 21 this year. Based on the journey duration, there are seven fare bands. The first band has flights that are operated under 40 minutes duration. The rest of the fare bands are applicable on 40-60 minutes, 60-90 minutes, 90-120 minutes, 120-150 minutes, 150-180 minutes, and 180-210 minutes of flight durations.

Here's the tweet:

On November 1, the daily passenger traffic had reached 2.05 lakh. When the domestic aviation opened in May this year, the airlines were enabled to fly up to 33 percent of the normal capacity. This cap was enhanced to 45 percent with effect from June 26 and was further revised to 60 percent with effect from September 2.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 11, 2020 07:11 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).