Opinion | How India could revive two birds in one stroke

Airlines have been gasping for survival across the world ever since the covid pandemic grounded aircraft and suffocated demand for air travel. Airports were seen as transmission hubs right from the outbreak’s onset; and recent reports that the risk of airborne coronaviral infection in enclosed spaces may be higher than estimated earlier have done little for the confidence of would-be flyers. In India, even though air carriers have been allowed to resume only partial services, their occupancy levels are reported to be in a pale range of about half on high-traffic routes to roughly two-thirds on flights that link destinations that are hard to reach overland. Flights are being called off, too. According to OAG, a UK-based travel data provider, only 1.3 million seats were on offer this week, half the figure last week. With post-lockdown revenues failing to gain altitude, now that stranded passengers have presumably reached home, some airlines are looking for novel ways to attract custom. Earlier this week, the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture Vistara began offering the option of buying an adjoining seat to keep vacant on its flights.