Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said that the government is working for international flight resumption and will try to start a good percentage of international passenger flights before August. While announcing the resumption of domestic flights from May 25, Minister Puri said that the decision on resumption of international flights is yet to be taken.
“I can’t put a date on it (restarting international flights). But if somebody says can it be done by August or September, my response is why not earlier depending on what is the situation,” he added.
“I am fully hopeful that before August or September, we will try to start a good percentage of international civil aviation operations if not complete international operations, “I can’t put a date on it (restarting international flights). ” Puri said during a Facebook live session.
The Centre on Wednesday announced that domestic flight services would resume from Monday in a “calibrated manner”, laying the ground for a gradual resumption of scheduled commercial flight operations that have been shut since March 25.
Speaking on the same, Puri said there’s no contradiction between the starting of flights and the extension of the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown. “There’s no contradiction between domestic flights beginning from May 25 and lockdown in India being imposed till May 31. We will be able to bring around 50,000 citizens back through special flights during the first 25 days of Vande Bharat Mission,” he added.
He said that the passengers who have the green status on the Aarogya Setu app on their phones will not need to be quarantined once they land back.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said it would implement a fare cap for domestic air travel for three months citing a possible surge in airfares due to pent-up demand. It also issued standard operating procedures with specific pre-flight, in-flight and post-flight guidelines that include arriving at the airport at least two hours prior to departure time, mandatory use of face masks, clearance from Aarogya Setu app and compulsory web check-in.
