The government will remove restrictions on domestic aviation capacity from October 18, Civil Aviation Ministry said on Tuesday.

Currently, the cap on capacity for domestic flights was at 85%. Before that, the carriers were operating 72.5 percent of their pre-Covid domestic flights since August 12, according to the Civil Aviation ministry’s order. Between July 5 and August 12, the cap stood at 65 percent. Between June 1 and July 5, the cap was at 50 percent.

When the government had resumed the scheduled domestic flights on May 25 last year after a two-month break, the ministry had allowed the carriers to operate not more than 33 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic services. The cap was gradually increased to 80 per cent by December. The 80 per cent cap remained in place till June 1.

The May 28, 2021 decision to bring down the cap from 80 to 50 per cent from June 1 onwards was taken “in view of the sudden surge in the number of active COVID-19 cases across the country, decrease in passenger traffic and the passenger load (occupancy rate) factor”, the ministry had said.