New Delhi: As the coronavirus lockdown nears its end, the airplane and train services are set to be impacted. While airfares may skyrocket up to three times, railways may suspend booking of tickets till there is clarity from the government.
The 21-day national lockdown to avoid spread of deadly covid-19 that has affected over 9,000 Indians and killed nearly 300 is set to end on April 14. However, the Centre is mulling to extend it by 15 days as several states have requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi for its continuation.
According to a report in The Times of India, the aviation authorities are planning to increase the cost of air tickets for the first few days after lockdown to ensure maximum social distancing between onboard passengers.
The authorities are evaluating the option of allowing only one person in a row of three seats, with another passenger in the immediately-behind row-of-three on the diametrically opposite seat — widow-aisle-windowaisle configuration — during 'Phase I' of the restart, the report stated.
To compensate for the loss of capacity, airlines will need to raise fares by anywhere between 1.5 to 3 times, officials were quoted as saying.
The TOI report further stated that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is preparing a flight resumption plan that will be implemented once the government allows schedule passenger movement post lockdown.
The regulator is likely to seek a 1.5-metre distancing between passengers at airports, by marking points everywhere — right from entry gate to the check-in counter, security check, immigration (for international) counters and boarding gates.
"Discussions have already been held with airlines and airport operators. Given the low volume of travel expected in the first few weeks, 1.5-metre distancing will not be an issue at big airports like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and some others," a senior official was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, the railways may suspend booking tickets till there is no clarity from government on resuming of passenger trains. The report quoted sources as saying that the plan was discussed after the issue of advance booking reportedly came up at a high level review meeting on transport and supply chain related issues on Sunday.
"The decision about extending lockdown and what all services will be allowed and in what scale will be announced soon. But there is hardly any indication of all passenger trains operating for which people have already booked tickets. The railways will have to deal with this," the TOI report quoted a source as saying.
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