After Indian Railways, Air India to operate special domestic flights connecting several cities from May 19

(TAN): Air India could operate special domestic flights from various cities between May 19 and June 2 in a bid to help people stranded in different corners of the country to reach home, reports said.

According to reports, most of these flights will operate from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, while Chennai will be allotted one flight that will operate to Kochi on May 19. Delhi will reportedly get 173 flights, Mumbai 40, Hyderabad 25 and Kochi 12.

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Services from Delhi will fly to cities including Jaipur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Vijaywada, Gaya and Lucknow, as per reports. Flights from Mumbai, on the other hand, will operate to Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Vijaywada, reports said.

India’s flag carrier has not yet opened bookings for the services – passengers will have to pay for their seats that can be booked through the airline’s website after a notification is issued, as per reports.

Schedule for these flights have reportedly been prepared and is waiting for an approval from the Civil Aviation Ministry. However, the ministry said it had yet to announce the final standard operating procedures (SOP) that will be introduced once flights operations restart.

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“There are reports in the media regarding the SOP issued by MoCA for restarting of aviation post lockdown. It is clarified that suggestions were sought on a draft discussion paper from airlines & airports. The suggestions have now been received. The final SOP is yet to be issued,” the ministry said in a tweet.

Now that the Indian Railways have restored passenger train services earlier this week with 15 pairs of special trains running from New Delhi to major stations across the country on a daily basis, passenger flight operations via special services are expected to start too, as per reports.

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