Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said that the cap on the number of domestic flights that airline companies in India are permitted to operate has increased from 70 per cent to 80 per cent of their pre-Covid levels starting from the day.

On November 11, the minister had said that airlines can operate up to 70 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic passenger flights in view of the rising demand amid the pandemic situation.

“Domestic operations recommenced with 30K passengers on 25 May & have now touched a high of 2.52 lakhs on 30 Nov 2020,” the aviation minister tweeted on Thursday.

“Ministry of Civil Aviation is now allowing domestic carriers to increase their operations from existing 70% to 80% of pre-COVID approved capacity,” Puri stated.

The ministry had resumed scheduled domestic passenger services from May 25, after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus lockdown.

However, the airlines were allowed to operate not more than 33 per cent of their pre-COVID domestic flights.

On June 26, this was increased to 45 per cent and on September 2, it was further increased to 60 per cent. On November 11, it was increased to 70 per cent.