Domestic flight capacity can be hiked to 45% from 33%: Centre

NEW DELHI: The ministry of civil aviation has allowed the capacity of domestic flights to be increased to 45% from 33% at present. An order by the civil aviation ministry on Friday said the Directorate General of civil aviation (DGCA) was requested to prepare the schedule of airlines. HT has reviewed a copy of the order.

“We are working on the schedule specific to different airports in the country and soon we should be able to provide more connectivity to our citizens,” a senior DGCA official said.

The order revised the Centre’s earlier order on May 21 restricting capacity utilisation of domestic flights to a third of the approved summer schedule.

“In partial modification on the order issued on May 21, after review of the current status of scheduled domestic operations viz-viz passenger demand for air travel…one third capacity may be read as 45%,” the order noted on Friday.

Domestic flights were allowed to resume from May 25, two months after a blanket suspension since the first lockdown was announced on March 25.

“The decision has been taken to gradually increase more flights and add more routes in a calibrated manner. We expect the capacity to increase slowly with demand. We are looking to increase our domestic passengers from 60,000 to 70,000,” a civil aviation ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

On June 25, a month since the resumption of domestic flights, 772 flights took off ferrying 62,580 passengers, according to the aviation ministry.

This also comes a week after Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri said that he was hopeful of resuming domestic flights to full capacity by the end of the year.