Govt bans on-board meals on flights with duration of less than 2 hours

The Civil Aviation Ministry on Monday said that airlines are not permitted to serve meals on flights that have a duration of less than two hours amid rising COVID-19 cases in India.

The ban will come into effect from Thursday, the ministry said in its order.

When scheduled domestic flights were resumed on May 25 after coronavirus lockdown last year, the ministry had allowed the airlines to serve in-flight meals under certain conditions.

Modifying the previous order, the ministry's fresh directive said: "The airlines, operating flights on domestic sectors, may provide meals services on board, where the in-flight duration is two hours or more."

The ministry stated it has decided to review the on-board meal services in domestic flights considering "the increasing threat of COVID-19 and its variants".

When it comes to international flights, since March 23, last year, scheduled flights have been suspended and India has finalised the air bubble agreement with several countries like Sri Lanka, France, US, and many more. 

India has seen close to 1.70 lakh Covid-19 cases, today which is considered to be its highest single-day tally since the outbreak of the pandemic. Around 1,68,912 more people tested positive for Covid-19 across the country in the last 24 hours, said the Union health ministry.

On May 25 last year, the country India restarted its domestic passenger flight operations after almost two months due to the lockdown. 

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