India is set to resume domestic flights two months after the government imposed a lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The flights will start from Monday "in a calibrated manner", according to the civil aviation minister.
Hardeep Puri said all airports and airlines were being "informed to be ready for operations".
The "Standard Operations Procedures for movement of passengers will be announced on Thursday", he said.
There had been some speculation that the middle seats on flights would be kept empty to maintain social distancing, but Mr Puri told news agency ANI that it was not "viable".
Even if "you keep the middle seat vacant you'll still have a situation where prescribed distance for social distancing isn't followed", the minister said, adding that this would lead to a 33% hike in ticket prices.
Several states had expressed concerns over resuming flights as metros such as Delhi and Mumbai are still red zones.
Earlier this week, the minister had tweeted saying that it is not up to the federal government or the ministry alone to "decide on resuming domestic flights".
"In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the government of states where these flights will take off and land should be ready to allow civil aviation operations." (BBC reports)
Kommentare