Tags:
Journalism of Courage
As the government prepares to relax certain restrictions May 4 onwards, airlines and airports have started to lay down the ground for resumption of scheduled commercial flight operations that have been shut since March 25. The indication from government officials, however, is that flights are expected to resume with 25-30 per cent capacity mid-May onwards.
In a communication to airport managers across the country, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) asked all airports to be in preparedness to handle flight operations. Issuing a set of standard operating procedures, 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, may be 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.
Similarly, Air India’s management has written to its staff to begin preparing for resumption of flight operations. “There is a probability to commence 25-30 per cent operations post-lockdown in mid-May 2020,” a communication sent to operations staff read.
Government officials have said airlines and customers will be given 10 days for bookings before operations are allowed to resume.
