IndiGo to suspend meal service for some time, fill only 50% capacity in airport buses post lockdown

Once the coronavirus lockdown is over in India and commercial passenger flights are permitted again, IndiGo will deep clean its aircraft more frequently, stop in-flight meal service for a brief period and will fill maximum 50 per cent capacity in airport buses, airline's CEO Ronojoy Dutta said on Friday.

"In situations like these, companies do not manage to growth or profitability but to liquidity. That means our singular focus is on cash flow. We are examining all our fixed costs and looking for ways to minimize them," he said.

Dutta said IndiGo's plan post lockdown will be going forward to first start the services and gradually ramp up the capacity.

"We have always been very 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. The new set of procedures have not been finalized yet.

"But we will deep clean our aircraft more frequently, we will be discontinue meal service for a brief period and we will run our coaches at a maximum load of 50% capacity. We will be coming out with the new set of operating procedures very soon," Dutta said in an email to employees on Friday, which has been accessed by PTI.

India has imposed a 21-day lockdown till April 14 to curb the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, all domestic and international commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this time period.

However, cargo flights, offshore helicopter operations, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Indian aviation regulator DGCA are permitted to operate during the lockdown.

As revenues of airlines have fallen drastically, they have introduced various cost cutting measures such laying off pilots, pay cuts and compulsory leave without pay for employees.

Dutta had announced last month that salaries of senior employees of the airline have been cut by up to 25 per cent.