The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on Saturday, approved the suspension of domestic and international commercial flights till May 17.
The DGCA issued circular after the government extended the lockdown for another two weeks. The Government of India announced the phase 3 of the lockdown on Friday.
However, DGCA said that the restrictions would not apply to international all-cargo operations.
India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of coronavirus. All commercial passenger flights have been suspended during the lockdown period.
Recently, the aviation regulator informed that domestic air passenger traffic in March fell by 33.06 per cent to 77.62 lakh as compared to the same month last year. Additionally, the passenger load factors of all airlines decreased significantly in March as compared to February.
The passenger load factor measures the seat capacity utilisation of the airline.
At 83.7 per cent, SpiceJet saw the highest passenger load factor in March. At number two, GoAir had 78.9 per cent load factor.
In February this year, the rise in the number of domestic air passengers was 8.9 per cent to 1.23 crore when compared with the figures of the corresponding month in 2019.
According to the DGCA data, IndiGo maintained its lead position with 48.9 per cent share of the domestic passenger market in March 2020. SpiceJet bagged no.2 spot as its market share increased from 15.3 per cent in February to 16 per cent in March, as per the data.
The market share of Air India, GoAir, AirAsia India and Vistara was 10.8 per cent, 9.9 per cent, 7.6 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively last month.
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