Starting Friday, govt bans meals on flights less than 2-hr duration

THE NEW COVID PROTOCOL ALSO MANDATES THE CREW TO WEAR A FRESH SET OF GLOVES FOR EVERY MEAL OR BEVERAGE SERVICE

The ministry of civil aviation on Monday amended guidelines for in-flight meal services, ruling such services will be available only on those with a journey time of two hours or more from April 15 amid the rising threat of Covid-19 and three variants of coronavirus. “The airlines, operating on domestic sectors, may provide meals services onboard, wherein the flight duration is two hours or more,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry noted that currently three strains of the SARSCoV-2, which causes the coronavirus disease, currently in circulation in India have been detected in various countries.

“All three variants have demonstrated increased transmissibility, as reported by the World Health Organization. Meanwhile in India, the number of Covid-19 cases are increasing,” it said. The three variants of the SARS-CoV-2 are the UK, Brazil and South Africa variants.

“The MoCA, considering the increasing threat of Covid-19 and its variants, has decided to review onboard meal services in domestic flight of operations,” the memorandum further stated.

The services, however, will be subject to certain conditions. These include using disposable tray set-up, plates and cutlery with no reuse; serving tea/coffee/alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage services in disposable cans/containers/bottles/ glasses; disposing all the used plates/cutleries/beverage bottles/glasses in trash bags/carts etc. Further, the crew will wear a fresh set of gloves for every meal/beverage service and passengers would be informed about the rules for strict compliance. The servicing, the document added, shall be staggered among the adjacent seats “as far as possible.”