IndiGo will deep clean its aircraft more frequently, to ensure coaches are run at 50 per cent of the capacity and to discontinue meals onboard for a brief period as and when it begins flying again, said Rono Dutta, the Chief Executive Officer and President, in a mail his employees.
“We have always been safety conscious and now we must be health-conscious as well. With this in mind, we are looking at changing many of our operating procedures,” he said. The new set of procedures have not been finalised yet.
“We will start the airline up slowly at first and gradually ramp up the capacity,” he says adding that in situations like these companies do not manage growth or profitability but liquidity which means that the singular focus of the airline will be on cash flow. “We are examining all our fixed costs and looking for ways to minimize them,” he said.
Although the airline is yet to announce its start date, it has been taking booking for flights from April 15 onwards in anticipation of the all India lockdown being lifted by then. The government is yet to make a call on whether the all India lockdown will end on mid-night of April 14 or continue for longer.