Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said IndiGo airline will operate three flights in a week on the Bhubaneswar-Jaipur route.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said direct flight services between Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and Rajasthan’s Jaipur will commence from November 2. In a recent letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who hails from Odisha, Scindia said IndiGo airline will operate three flights in a week on the Bhubaneswar-Jaipur route.
“I hope that the connectivity between Temple City, Bhubaneswar and Pink City, Jaipur would not only enhance tourist footfall but would also provide a boost to economic activities in both the states,” Scindia said. The Odisha government has been demanding flight services on the route to attract tourists to the eastern state. Pradhan had on September 17 written to Scindia, seeking his intervention to commence flight services between the two cities.
Recently, the government had announced the removal of restrictions on domestic aviation capacity from Oct 18. The government had capped domestic flight capacity since May 2020 and the domestic flights capacity was capped at 85%. In September, MoCA allowed airlines to operate a maximum of 85 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights instead of the 72.5 per cent allowed to date. The carriers have been operating 72.5 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights since August 12, according to the ministry’s order. Between July 5 and August 12, the cap stood at 65 per cent. Between June 1 and July 5, the cap was at 50 per cent.
The ministry issued a fresh order in which it modified the August 12 order stating that “72.5 per cent capacity may be read as 85 per cent capacity”. Saturday’s order also noted that the 72.5 per cent cap will remain in place “until further order”.
When the government had resumed the scheduled domestic flights on May 25 last year after a two-month break, the ministry had allowed the carriers to operate not more than 33 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic services. The cap was gradually increased to 80 per cent by December.
The 80 per cent cap remained in place till June 1. The May 28 decision to bring down the cap from 80 to 50 per cent from June 1 onwards was taken “in view of the sudden surge in the number of active COVID-19 cases across the country, decrease in passenger traffic and the passenger load (occupancy rate) factor”, the ministry had said.
(WITH PTI INPUTS)
