The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday stated that domestic airlines will deploy up to 80 percent of their pre-Covid flight capacity from an earlier 70 percent.
"@MoCA_GoIa is now allowing domestic carriers to increase their operations from existing 70 percent to 80 percent of pre-Covid approved capacity." Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted earlier.
"Domestic operations recommenced with 30K passengers on 25 May & have now touched a high of 2.52 lakhs on 30 Nov 2020," he added.
In November, the Centre had permitted domestic airlines to increase their operations to 70 percent of the pre-COVID-19 levels from the existing 60 percent. The decision was taken in wake of a surge in passenger traffic.
It may be recalled that domestic passenger flights were resumed from May 25, after a halt of two months due to the nationwide lockdown. However, they were not allowed to operate at more than 33 percent of their pre-COVID capacity.
A month later, this cap was increased to 45 percent and on September 2, due to the high volume of travellers, the government further increased it to 60 percent.
Moreover, the government had started the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ on May 6 aimed at bringing back stranded citizens from foreign countries and help those stranded due to the novel coronavirus pandemic reach their destinations via international repatriation flights.
(With IANS inputs)
