Domestic flights now allowed to operate at 80% of pre-COVID levels

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday (December 3) said the Centre has increased the cap on the number of domestic flights that Indian airlines are permitted to operate from 70% to 80% of their pre-COVID levels.

On November 11, Puri had said that Indian airlines can operate up to 70% of their pre-COVID domestic passenger flights.

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“Domestic operations recommenced with 30K passengers on 25 May & have now touched a high of 2.52 lakh on 30 Nov 2020. @MoCA_GoI is now allowing domestic carriers to increase their operations from existing 70% to 80% of pre-COVID approved capacity. @PMOIndia @DGCAIndia (sic),” Puri tweeted.

Later, the MoCA tweeted, “Domestic aviation continues to soar high! Domestic operations touched a new high of 2.52 lakh passengers on 30 Nov, up from 30k passengers on 25 May when operations recommenced. With this, domestic operations have now been increased from 70% to 80% of pre-COVID capacity.”

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) had resumed scheduled domestic passenger services from May 25, after stopping them for two months due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. The airlines were allowed to operate not more than 33% of their pre-COVID domestic flights.

On June 26, this was increased to 45% and on September 2, it was further increased to 60%. On November 11, it was increased to 70%.