The airline industry in India has been severely affected with many companies even eyeing for bankruptcy due the government imposed travel restrictions. Airline companies for the past 50 days have resorted to tough measures like layoffs and pay cuts to tide over the crisis. They have been, for long, asking the government to resume flight operations as soon as possible.
Taking into consideration the impact of the pandemic on these airlines, the Government of India recently announced that domestic flights and civil aviation operations will be allowed to resume from May 25 in a “calibrated” manner.
Earlier, the Airport Authority of India had issued a six pointer mandatory guideline for flyers to follow in case of opting for air travel and now, the Civil Aviation Minister Harshdeep Singh Puri informed that special operating procedures (SOPs) for passenger movement are being separately issued.
“Domestic civil aviation operations will recommence in a calibrated manner from 25 May. All airports & air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from 25 May. SOPs for passenger movement also being separately issued by Ministry,” tweeted Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
The announcement came amid the fourth phase of the lockdown which was imposed by the government on 25 March in order to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Earlier, Puri had said that the domestic flight operations in India will resume once the state governments are ready to open airports. The Centre alone can not make a decision in this regard, he said.
“It is not up to @MoCA_GoI or center alone to decide on resuming domestic flights. In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the govt of states where these flights will take off & land should be ready to allow civil aviation operations,” tweeted the aviation minister.
While the government as well as airlines have talked about a “new normal” when flights start again, with fewer passengers in a flight, Mr Puri made it clear that it would not be possible to keep the middle seat vacant, which had been one of the suggestions for ensuring physical distancing to avoid the infection.
“It’s not viable to keep the middle seat vacant. Even if you keep the middle seat vacant you’ll still have a situation where the prescribed distance for social distancing isn’t followed. If you were to do it then you’ve to hike up the airline ticket price by 33 percent,” the minister was quoted as telling news agency ANI.
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