Restrict In-flight meals on flights with less than 2 hours duration

As the number of novel coronavirus cases in the country has risen to new highs in single-day totals in recent days, the Aviation Ministry banned in-flight meals on flights lasting less than two hours on Monday.

According to the new regulation, the revised regulations will go into force on April 15. Meal service will be staggered across adjacent seats on flights longer than 2 hours, it added.

"Airlines operating domestic flights will provide meal services on board if the flight length is two hours or more," the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in an April 12 notification.

The action came after India recorded nearly 1.70 lakh Covid-19 cases on Monday, the highest single-day tally since the pandemic's outbreak. As a result, India has surpassed Brazil as the country with the second-highest number of virus cases.

According to the Union Health Ministry, as many as 1,68,912 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours across the world, bringing the total caseload to 1,35,27,717.

The DGCA had recently authorised 18,843 weekly flights from 108 airports for the summer schedule, which starts on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Sunday of October.

The frequency of flights for this year's summer schedule has been accepted with the understanding that airlines may operate no more than 80% of their pre-COVID flights.

IndiGo's 8,749 weekly flights and SpiceJet's 2,854 have been approved for the summer schedule, according to the company. GoAir has received approval for 1,747 flights, Air India has received approval for 1,683, Vistara has received approval for 1,288 flights, and AirAsia India has received approval for 1,243 flights.

After a two-month hiatus due to the coronavirus-induced lockout, India resumed domestic passenger flight operations on May 25, last year. Airlines were only allowed to operate a maximum of 33% of their pre-COVID flights at the time. This was eventually raised to 80%.