Once the coronavirus lockdown is over in India and commercial passenger flights are permitted again, IndiGo will deep clean its aircraft more frequently, stop in-flight meal service for a brief period and will fill the maximum 50 percent seats in airport buses, airline’s CEO Ronojoy Dutta said on Friday.
Our singular focus is on cash flow. We are examining all our fixed costs and looking for ways to minimize them,” he said in an email to employees which was accessed by PTI.
Dutta said IndiGo’s plan after the lockdown will be going forward to first start the services and gradually ramp up the capacity. “We have always been very safety conscious and now we must be health-conscious as well. With this in mind, we are looking at changing many of our operating procedures. The new set of procedures has not been finalized yet.”
According to the Indigo Airlines CEO, companies should not manage to growth or profitability but to liquidity in a situation like this.
India has imposed a 21-day lockdown till April 14 to curb the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this time period.
However, cargo flights, offshore helicopter operations, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Indian aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation are permitted to operate during the lockdown.
Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in India has jumped to 6412, showed the latest figures from the Union Health Ministry. The death toll from COVID-19 rose to 199 while 503 patients have been cured of the virus or discharged. Maharashtra remains the worst affected state with 1,364 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu at 834 and Delhi at 720, Rajasthan at 463 and Telangana at 442.
Across the globe, the total number of coronavirus positive cases has crossed 16 lakh with over 95,000 deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Over 3.5 lakh have recovered.
