Over 92 flights of national carrier Air India scheduled between May 28 and May 31 have been cancelled because of limited operations at airports and strict quarantine rules.

The cancellations are because of unavailability of slots at major airports, officials said.

There were 354 departures and 288 arrivals on the third day of the resumption of the domestic services with a total of 47,917 passengers travelling at various airports, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in a tweet.

Limited domestic services to Calcutta will resume on Thursday with 10 arrivals and 10 departures on a daily basis. Similarly, Bagdogra airport will also only 10 departures and 10 arrivals daily from May 28. This has led to a situation where available slots are few but contenders are many.

Chennai airport also has set a limit of up to 25 arrivals. At Mumbai airport, the second busiest airport of the country, only 25 departures and 25 arrivals are permitted.

Some of the cancellations were on routes such as Delhi-Calcutta, Chennai-Delhi, Hyderabad-Bangalore, Delhi-Hyderabad, Chennai-Mumbai and Mumbai-Ahmedabad.

Refund rule

Before the lockdown, airlines, specifically IndiGo and Air Asia had allowed refunds to only be held in the form of a credit shell for customer.

Both these two airlines will now refund in agents’ ticketing accounts, which travel companies can use for the future to buy tickets, Nishant Pitti, co-founder if EaseMyTrip.com, said.