Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said domestic airlines will soon be allowed to increase their capacity to 75 per cent. At present, they are operating at 65 per cent capacity, after domestic flights resumed operations on May 25 — following a gap of two months of lockdown. “There is no deadline. But this can happen soon as the domestic numbers are going up. Before this I said that the pre-covid domestic number will be achieved between Diwali and New Year. Now I am confident that by the first quarter next year, we will be able to surpass the pre-covid number,” the civil aviation minister said.
“This marks the beginning of the second phase of domestic travel as we are now gearing up to face the challenge of welcoming more people in the airports as the festive season is almost upon us. We had a meeting with the airlines recently in this regard,” Pradeep Singh Kharola, civil aviation secretary said.
