IndiGo is “resonably pleased” with the progress it has made so far in domestic flying, with the fares being capped at the upper and lower level, William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo said on Thursday.

“Yes, airlines are flying to a limited extent… In IndiGo’s case it is in the 20 per cent range of what we used to operate. Clearly demand is there. Yes, there is a fare cap and we are operating within that, and we are reasonably pleased with the progress so far. The load factors are lower than they were previously ,and we are waiting to see which way demand goes. We are quite optimistic that we would like to fly more as time goes on,” Boulter said while participating in a webinar on ‘Restoring confidence in air travel’, jointly organised by US India Aviation Cooperation Programme and co-hosted by Boeing.

When domestic flying restarted on May 25 after a gap of two months, the government decided to cap the minimum and maximum fares for domestic flights for the next three months — until the midnight of August 24. The domestic airlines were allowed to operate one-third of the flights they had operated earlier.

Airport experience

Addressing the webinar, Pradeep Panicker, Chief Executive Officer, Hyderabad International Airport Ltd talked about the measures that the airport has taken to make travel contactless, including at the water fountain, where earlier there were touch buttons which people had to touch for drinking water. “Now we have made it proximity based so the person goes near the water fountain and automatically the water starts coming out,” he added.

Panicker added that Hyderabad airport is now looking at setting up sanitisation stations at retail stores to give greater confidence to flyers.

“People are not getting the comfort when they are going into a retail shop (as they might be thinking) whether the product they are buying is contaminated. We are trying to give them a sanitation station where it will be sanitised in their presence and then handed over to them. These are things that we are trying to bring in so that confidence of the passenger is restored in the entire process,” Panicker said.

During the webinar, industry experts, including those from the hotel industry, outlined the steps being taken to ensure the safety of travelers.

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