GoAir To Resume Flights On 1 June Instead Of 25 May

Though the Ministry of Civil Aviation has allowed commercial flight operations to begin on 25 May, budget carrier GoAir is likely to resume domestic flight services from 1 June, owing to certain "operational and regulatory" issues, sources told PTI.

Commercial passenger services on domestic routes will be allowed to operate from 25 May following comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), covering all stakeholders.

As on Friday, except GoAir, all other Indian airlines, including national carrier Air India, had commenced bookings for their domestic flights.

"We have bookings from 1 June onwards as the government had earlier disallowed airlines from taking bookings till 31 May. We have some issues such as (providing) simulator training to pilots and renewal of certain licences which have lapsed," a source in the airline to PTI.

"All these issues will take a couple of days to be sorted out. For this reason, we are expected to resume our services only from June 1," the source added.

Since the airline's employees are on leave without pay, they could not go for simulator training earlier, and currently, these facilities are not available due to demand, he said.

"Nevertheless, we are preparing to take off the ground again. We plan to operate 100 flights per day with a fleet of 17-18 aircraft, which is one-third of both -- our almost total number of daily flights and aircraft," another source said.

"We have already got the approval for 85 flights. We have filed plans for another 15 flights," he added.

In the pre-lockdown period, the Wadia Group-owned aviation entity had been flying 280 services daily on national routes, in addition to around 60 on overseas routes with a fleet of 54-56 aircraft.

Airlines are now required to extensive measures to restart their operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic which includes measures ranging from providing protective gear like face shields and gowns to cabin crew to deep cleaning of aircraft every 24 hours.