Flight curbs will be lifted once Covid-19 is under control, says Puri

India will allow domestic and international commercial passenger flights when it's sure that the spread of coronavirus has come under control, sad Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday.

"My heart goes out to people who are facing problems due to restrictions put in place on domestic & international flights, pursuant to the situation arising out of the timely announcement of a nationwide lockdown," the minister said on Twitter.

India has imposed a 21-day lockdown from March 25 to curb the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this time period.

However, cargo flights, offshore helicopter operations, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Indian aviation regulator DGCA are permitted to operate during this lockdown.

"These restrictions will be lifted once we are fully confident that the spread of the virus has been controlled & it poses no danger to fellow Indians," the minister said.

"I thank everyone for their cooperation and help in these testing times. Together we shall overcome and emerge stronger," he added.

Airlines not refunding for cancelled flights due to lockdown, allege travel agents

Travel agents body on Tuesday alleged that majority of IATA-member airlines have disabled the refunding mechanism on the Global Distribution Services System (GDS-system) for agents and urged the civil aviation ministry to direct the airlines to repay customers for cancelled flights due to 21-day lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus infection.

Most of the airlines, including domestic players, have refused to refund customers whose flights either got cancelled due to the suspension of all commercial passenger flights in the wake of 21-day lockdown, or because of the visa and travel restrictions by various countries or they themselves cancelled tickets on account of pandemic concerns.

The airlines are forcing customers to accept travel vouchers with their validity, in some cases, as long as one year.

Not only this, domestic airlines except the national carrier Air India, have started taking bookings from April 15 onwards. The three-week lockdown will remain in force till April 14, as of now.