After reviewing the current situation of Covid-19 pandemic and looking at the growth of domestic air travel in the country, the government has announced to restore scheduled domestic air operations in the country without any capacity restrictions from October 18. With this, airlines can operate flights of their pre-Covid domestic services. Airlines are currently operating at 85 per cent capacity since September 18 when the government last reviewed capacity from 72.5 per cent.

The civil aviation ministry said the decision was taken after taking in view the current status of scheduled domestic operations viz-a-viz passenger demand for air travel. On 11 October, airlines carried about 266,000 passengers on 2307 flights across the country.

“The airlines/airport operators shall, however, ensure that the guidelines to contain the spread of Covid are strictly adhered to and Covid appropriate behavior is strictly enforced by them during the travel,” the order said.