Domestic flights to operate at 100% capacity from Oct 18

Oct. 13—The Union ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) on Tuesday allowed domestic flights to fly with 100% capacity from October 18 onwards, coinciding with what is usually the beginning of the peak season for the aviation business in the country.

The ministry reduced the permissible capacity to 50% with effect from June 1 due to the second wave of the pandemic. It increased it to 72.5% with effect from August 12, and further to 85.% with effect from September 18. The passenger traffic has increased from around 3.1 million in June to 6.9 million in September. Most airlines say their busier routes are seeing an average occupancy of 70.2%.

According to DGCA data, average load factor of six major airlines in August was 70.2%. IndiGo said its current load factor is 75% to 80% and average daily flights is around 1,200.

IndiGo said it is happy with government's decision to allow airlines to operate with full capacity from October 18.

"It is a welcome move as we believe that with recent pent-up demand combined with the upcoming festive season, it will be great to operate flights on pre-pandemic levels. We are quite bullish about the overall growth and demand for domestic travel," IndiGo spokesperson said.

The ministry's announcement comes against the backdrop of business activities returning to normal — the Nomura India Business Resumption Index or NIBRI crossed 100 for the first time in the week ended August 15, 2021 — and with some people even returning to the office, and with the average of cases and deaths falling. The 7-day average of cases was 19,018 on October 11, the lowest since early March and that of deaths, 244, the lowest since late March.

Airlines have been lobbying for an increase in capacity for several months and welcome Tuesday's announcement.

"Vistara welcomes the Government's decision to remove the capacity cap. We believe that it will be helpful in accelerating recovery from the severe impacts of the pandemic as demand continues to grow, especially with the growing confidence in air travel and the much-awaited festive season," said Vistara spokesperson.

Tuesday's circular read, '...it has been decided to restore the scheduled domestic air operations with effect from 18 without any capacity restriction.'

However, scheduled international operations continue to remain suspended further till October 31. International operations under the Vande Bharat Mission will however continue.

Suprio Banerjee, vice-president and sector head of ratings agency ICRA, said, "In ICRA's view this is a step in right direction, given on a sequential basis from June 2021 there has been a steady rise in domestic passenger traffic on month-on-month basis, reflecting pick up in leisure and corporate travel to an extent compared to necessary travel when the second wave of Covid-19 hit. With onset of the festive and tourist season... 100% permissible capacity will allow the airlines to serve a wider market and in turn will encourage air travel."

Nishant Pitti, CEO and co-founder of EaseMyTrip, said, "...we believe the lifting of capacity restrictions will have a positive impact on airline partners to rise from the challenges that they have been facing over the past year and a half."

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