Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns, people have been urged to stay home and help flatten the curve. Public transport too had been restricted.
Even now, while the lockdowns have been eased, and things are gradually being restored to normalcy, services remain restricted. International flights have been kept to a minimum, utilised primarily to bring back stranded individuals. While domestic flight services have resumed, demand continues to remain on the lower side.
On Friday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation took to Twitter sharing a notice on the restoration of domestic flight services. In a notice the Ministry of Civil Aviation had sought compliance of all domestic scheduled operators over its circular "regarding opening of domestic civil flight operations in a calibrated manner".
Citing the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the country, the DGCA has said that its earlier order would "remain in force till 2359 hrs. 1ST on 24th November, 2020 or until further orders". In another tweet, the DGCA said that the cap on domestic airfare would also be in place till November 24.
Based on this, both the cap on airfares and a halt on the complete resumption of flight services seems to have been extended. Earlier, on May 21, the Aviation Ministry had placed restrictions on the upper and lower limits for domestic airfares.
There are at present seven bands of ticket, with stipulated fare limits. The first such band consists of flights that are of less than 40 minutes duration. The lower and the upper fare limits for the first band is Rs 2,000 and Rs 6,000, respectively. The subsequent bands are for flights with durations of 40-60 minutes, 60-90 minutes, 90-120 minutes, 120-150 minutes, 150-180 minutes and 180-210 minutes.
The lower and upper limits for these bands are: Rs 2,500-Rs 7,500; Rs 3,000-Rs 9,000; Rs 3,500-Rs 10,000; Rs 4,500-Rs 13,000; Rs 5,500-Rs 15,700 and Rs 6,500-Rs 18,600, respectively.
(With inputs from agencies)
