Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted on Wednesday, domestic scheduled commercial passenger flights will resume in a calibrated manner from May 25, two months after the services were shut due to coronavirus. All airports & air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from 25th May. SOPs for passenger movement are also being separately issued.
India suspended flight operations after announcing lockdown on March 25 2020. However few rules that needs to be kept in mind is using Aarogya Setu app by the companies and no cabin luggage shall be entertained.
Airport Authority of India’s (AAI’s) directorate of operations said: “Once the lockdown period is declared to be over, airports shall be facilitating limited domestic/international scheduled flights in phases, to start with, maybe at 30 per cent capacity to facilitate required social distancing.” It added initially, airline operations may be limited to Tier-l cities and major Tier-ll cities.
With this, the staff of the aviation industries have to strictly follow measures for their own and passenger’s safety. Cabin crew members of Indian airlines will have personal protective equipment (PPE) like face shields, gowns and masks as part of their attire on commercial passenger flights when they resume operations, industry sources said.
However, cargo flights, medical evacuation flights and special flights to repatriate Indian citizens had been operating during this period.