- Saturday, May 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
WEEKS after India decided to postpone normalisation of international flight services in the wake of the outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the country’s civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said the same will depend on the Omicron scenario and the concerned authorities will keep a watch on the situation as it unfolds.
Speaking at a summit organised by industry body Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi on Tuesday, Scindia said, “Keeping in mind the health, we cannot dissociate ourselves from Covid. We are working closely with the health ministry. When we tide over Omicron, we can look at going back to normalcy even vis-a-vis international travel but I cannot give you the date today.
ALSO READ: Omicron: India extends international flight ban
It is not incumbent on me, there are host of other factors, other ministries that I have to coordinate with and watch the situation as it unfolds over the next couple of weeks,” he said.
Omicron norms ‘violation’: Etihad Airways show-caused
On November 26, India’s civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation had decided to resume scheduled commercial international flights to and from India from December 15.
However, the decision was reversed less than a week later as Omicron emerged and last week, the watchdog said the flights will remain out of operation till January 31, 2022.
Scheduled commercial international passenger flights have remained suspended since March 23, 2020, in the wake of the outbreak of the pandemic. Currently, flights are operational under bilateral bubble arrangements with various countries in a restricted manner.
Speaking on domestic air traffic, Scindia, who took over as the minister in July, said it is ranging between 3.7 lakh (0.37 million) to 3.9 lakh (0.39 million) passengers a day.
Pre-Covid, the highest was close to 4.2 lakh (0.42 million) passengers a day.
The domestic capacity was increased in a “very gradual and monitored process” and on October 18, the government allowed 100 per cent capacity for domestic airlines.
“Today, we are running 3.7 to 3.9 lakh passengers per day and on a seat load factor basis of 75-81 per cent, which is a very healthy seat load factor. Keeping that in mind, I was looking at opening up international travel but as you all are aware, just on the anvil of that the world got hit by Omicron,” Scindia said.
Replying to a query, the minister said every country has different rules with regard to international travel right now and understandably so.
“It depends on various countries’ risk appetite and you cannot disagree with what each individual country determines its risk appetite is… that decision is best left to individual countries rather than for us to impose a world wide sort of rules…,” he said.
