Domestic flights in India allowed to operate with full capacity from October 18: MoCA

In a major development for the aviation sector, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has permitted the restoration of the scheduled domestic air operations without any restrictions. The scheduled domestic flights can operate at full capacity from October 18. The resumption of domestic flights comes after a year-and-half hiatus following the outbreak of COVID in 2020.

The flight capacity, which was trimmed due to the onset of the COVID pandemic, was increased to 80% in December last year. However, it was curtained again to 50% on June 1, due to the second wave. The capacity was raised to 65% on July 25 and further increased to 72.5% on August 12. In September, the civil aviation ministry had increased the passenger capacity to 85% from 72.5%.

When flight operations were resumed last year on May 25, the domestic carriers were allowed to operate on 33% of their pre-pandemic domestic services.

The ministry, however, said that airlines and airport operators must "ensure guidelines to contain the spread of COVID-19 are strictly adhered to and Covid-appropriate behaviour is strictly enforced".

Domestic air passenger traffic grows 2-3% in September 

The ICRA data released recently showed that India's domestic air passenger traffic saw growth in September. The credits rating agency said that domestic air passenger traffic grew marginally 2-3% at around 69 lakh in September, PTI reported. The local carrier operated higher capacity at 54% in September 2021 over the same period last year.

In September, airlines witnessed around 61,100 departures as compared to 39,628 departures in the same month of 2020. "For September 2021, average daily departures were at around 2,100, significantly higher than the average daily departures of around 1,321 in September 2020, and higher than around 1,900 in August 2021, though they remained lower than around 2,200 in January 2021," said Suprio Banerjee, Vice President and Sector Head, Icra.

COVID cases in India

India reported 14,313 fresh COVID cases on Tuesday, the lowest single-day rise in 224 days. With this, the total COVID tally has reached 33,985,920, the health Minister informed. According to the latest health bulletin, 26,579 people have recovered from COVID taking total recoveries to 3,320,057. 181 individuals have also succumbed to the infection.