The carriers have been operating only 50 percent of their pre-Covid domestic flights since June 1 in accordance with a May 28 order of the ministry. Before June 1, the cap was at 80 percent.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Monday said airlines can now operate a maximum of 65 percent of their pre-COVID domestic flights instead of the 50 percent allowed to date.
The order dated July 5 read, “After the review of the current status of scheduled domestic operations viz-a-viz passenger demand for air travel in terms of the purpose specified in previous order 01/2020 dated 25.05.2020… 50% capacity may be read as 65% capacity.”
Airline stocks in focus
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govt increases domestic flight capacity to 65% from 50%
govt caps capacity at 65% until july 31st
Average daily traffic improves sharply to 135k passengers in week ended 3rd July vs 114k passengers on 26th june— Sonia Shenoy (@_soniashenoy) July 6, 2021
The carriers have been operating only 50 percent of their pre-Covid domestic flights since June 1 in accordance with a May 28 order of the ministry. Before June 1, the cap was at 80 percent.
The May 28 decision to bring down the cap from 80 to 50 percent was taken “in view of the sudden surge in the number of active COVID-19 cases across the country, decrease in passenger traffic and the passenger load (occupancy rate) factor”, the ministry had said.
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On December 3 last year, the civil aviation ministry allowed the airlines to increase their flights capacity from 70% to 80% of the pre covid levels.
After complete flight operation suspension for two months, the government permitted domestic flights from May 25, 2020, with 33% capacity of their pre covid levels which was then increased to 45% in June and so on. However, passenger traffic started to fall from March 2021 due to which the airlines approached the government to decrease the seating capacity from 80% to 60%.
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