On Tuesday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India announced that restrictions on domestic flights would be lifted starting 18 October 2021. In this way, domestic airlines will be able to operate their flights to full capacity.
The announcement comes after the daily domestic passenger traffic crossed the 3 lakh mark over the weekend.
Domestic airlines were allowed to increase their capacity of pre-Covid domestic flights to 85 percent rather than 72.5 percent last month.
There were about 266,000 passengers on 2307 flights across the country on Monday.
#MiddayNews |#Airlines can operate domestic #flights without any capacity restriction from Oct 18: Govthttps://t.co/RAmZD70v9H
— Mid Day (@mid_day) October 12, 2021
As stated in a written statement, “After reviewing the current status of Scheduled Domestic Operations with respect to passenger demand for air travel”, the ministry has decided to “restore scheduled domestic operations without any capacity restrictions.”
Following the outbreak of Coronavirus in May 2020, the Indian government imposed a cap on domestic flight capacity for about 17 months.
However, air carriers/airport operators must ensure that the guidelines on containing the spread of Covid are strictly adhered to and that Covid-appropriate behavior is strictly enforced during travel, the order stated.
