Govt likely to allow flight operations in staggered manner post lockdown

The government is likely to allow domestic and internationalflight operations in India in a staggered manner after the 21-day lockdown islifted on April 14 midnight, officials said on Sunday.

The aviation sector has been hit hard by the coronaviruspandemic.

   

On Sunday, Air Deccan became the latest casualty of thecrisis as it announced indefinite suspension of flight operations and asked allemployees to go on sabbatical without pay.

“As the virus is still spreading in India, we arethinking to permit domestic and international flight operations post April 14in a staggered manner. Airlines are free to take bookings for any date postApril 14,” a senior Civil Aviation Ministry official said.

“However, if the lockdown is extended post April 14,airlines will have to cancel the tickets booked for that time period,” theofficial noted.

All major airlines except Air India are taking domesticbookings for dates post April 14. Air India is taking bookings for dates postApril 30 only.

As it has sent all employees on sabbatical without pay, AirDeccan is not taking any bookings and it is not clear when it would restartoperations.

As revenues have fallen significantly, IndiGo has announceda pay cut of up to 25 per cent for its senior employees and Vistara hasannounced a compulsory leave without pay of up to three days for its senioremployees in March.

SpiceJet has stated that its employees’ salaries would bereduced between 10 to 30 per cent and Air India has announced a 10 per cent cutin allowances for every employee, except cabin crew, for the coming threemonths.

GoAir has cut salaries of its employees, laid off its expatpilots and introduced leave without pay for employees on a rotational basis.

India has imposed a 21-day lockdown from March 25 to curbspread of the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic andinternational commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this timeperiod.

However, cargo flights, offshore helicopter operations,medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Indian aviationregulator DGCA are permitted to operate during this lockdown.

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