India flies again! Airlines resume operations 2 months after lockdown
The domestic air travel in India has started again on Monday, after a gap of over two months due to the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of coronavirus outbreak. The Centre had announced earlier this month that airlines can start flying starting May 25, while maintaining certain guidelines. Delhi-Pune and Mumbai-Patna flights being among the first to take off. Both the flights were operated by IndiGo on Monday morning. While the Delhi-Pune flight departed at scheduled at 4.45 AM, the Mumbai-Patna flight departed at 6.45 AM. This was followed by Vistara's Delhi-Bhubaneswar flight. The flight departed from Delhi's IGI Airport, Terminal-3 at 6:50 am today.
Flight Operations Resume
Several states including Karnataka and Kerala have announced that arriving travellers will have to undergo some form of quarantine, either home or institutional. Also, few other states will resume operations in the coming days.
Flight Operations Resume
Meanwhile, the government has regulated airfares for the first two months as there is huge pent-up demand because of the lockdown and airlines will be running one-third of the approved summer schedule flights on the metro-metro-routes.
Flight Operations Resume
The minimum fare for flights between Delhi and Mumbai have been set at Rs 3,500 and the maximum you will have to pay is Rs 10,000. Also, airlines need to sale minimum 40% seats at a fare which is less than the midpoint of the minimum and maximum value.
Flight Operations Resume
"It has been a long day of hard negotiations with various state govts to recommence civil aviation operations in the country. Except Andhra Pradesh which will start on 26/5 & West Bengal on 28/5, domestic flights will recommence across the country from tomorrow," Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted on Sunday.