After a gap of over a year, serving food on flights with a duration of less than two hours can be resumed, the Union health ministry has informed the civil aviation ministry. The health ministry has also said the crew members on a flight need not wear coveralls but should continue to wear gloves, masks and face shields.
The Health Ministry conveyed this to the Civil Aviation Ministry after the latter sought inputs from it for amending the existing regulations.
Under the existing guidelines, airlines are not allowed to serve meals in flights that have a duration of less than two hours. The ban came into effect from April 15. When the scheduled domestic flight services were resumed on May 25 last year after the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the ministry had allowed the airlines to serve in-flight meals under certain conditions.
"The civil aviation ministry is reviewing the on-board meal services in domestic flights in view of a decline in the number of daily COVID-19 cases and has sought inputs from the health ministry for amending the existing guidelines. "The health ministry has now informed that serving food on flights of less than two hours can be resumed and that the crew members need not wear coveralls but should continue to wear gloves, masks and face shields," a PTI source said.
The Department related Standing Committee for Transport, Tourism and Culture met on Friday to discuss “issues affecting the Civil Aviation Sector in the current scenario”.
Members asked several questions related to airfare and the price cap in the meeting of the Aviation officers that also included the Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Several members asked as to why was there still a cap on flights and when would the normal schedule of flights resume.
Civil aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal is said to have told the committee that the price cap was due to the bubble system which is still in place and that an educated call would be taken by the concerned ministries in the near future.
Members expressed their concern over the high ticket price and why the government was not able to bring it under control. The officials of the ministry explained to the committee that there were several factors including the rise in aviation fuel that was in a way responsible for their price rise of tickets.
With 11,850 fresh cases, India's COVID-19 tally has shot up to 3,44,26,036, while the number of active cases of the infection has declined to 1,36,308, the lowest in 274 days, according to the health ministry's data updated at 8 am on Saturday. The death toll due to the viral disease has climbed to 4,63,245 with 555 more fatalities.
The number of fresh COVID-19 cases has been below 20,000 for 36 straight days and less than 50,000 fresh cases have been reported for 139 consecutive days.
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(With inputs from PTI)
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