More than 93 lakh passengers travelled on domestic flights between May 25 and September 16

India’s domestic aviation sector is slowly returning to pre-COVID levels, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep SIngh Puri said on Friday. Over 1.16 lakh passengers flew across the country on Thursday.

The minister took to Twitter to provide an update.

“Domestic civil aviation operations continue smoothly. With 1,16,398 passengers on 17th Sept 2020, we are slowly flying towards the Pre-COVID figures. More than 9.1 million passengers have now flown since operations recommenced on 25 May 2020,” he said.



The Ministry of Civil Aviation said a total of 2,759 flight movements took place across the country on Thursday.

On September 16, 1,35,171 passengers flew on 1,440 domestic flights across the country.

Providing further details, the Airports Authority of India said it had facilitated more than 1.05 lakh flight movements while serving more than 93 lakh passengers between May 25 and September 16.



According to AAI, over 31,000 passengers flew across the country from Northern India on 17th Sept.'20, making it one of the progressive days for AAI's Northern region Airports since the resumption of domestic flights.



Commercial flight operations in the country were suspended after the nationwide CODIV-19 lockdown was imposed on March 25. The government allowed a graded resumption of air operations from March 25 but only at one-third of their pre-COVID capacity.

Earlier this month, the government allowed airlines to sell up to 60% of their seats capacity on domestic flights.