Airlines can’t serve meals if flight time is less than 2 hrs

Airlines can’t serve meals if flight time is less than 2 hrs

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:13.04.2021

The gover nment has directed airlines to serve or sell inflight meals only on those domestic flights that have a duration of over two hours, in wake of the sharp surge in Covid cases in India. The new guildelines will come to effect on April 15.

There are so far no restrictions on inflight meals on international flights. There have been fears that passengers taking off masks to eat can lead to Covid spread. While this can’t be avoided on medium or long hauls, the restriction has been imposed on domestic flights of up to two-hour duration.

A senior aviation ministry official said: “We had (last year) issued guidelines for inflight meals and they have worked well. However, as an abundant precaution, additional provisions are being made. For domestic flights, an order is issued to consider inflight meal when flight duration is two hours or more.” The inflight meal SOP also calls for staggering them “among adjacent seats, as far as possible”.

The number of domestic passengers has been falling during the current spike in cases. The restriction on inflight meals will be yet another hit for low-cost carriers. “In the past few days with numbers rising, people on short flights preferred to stay firmly masked up. Fear is again in the air with aircraft occupancy falling to an average of less than 100 passengers,” said a worried airline official.