International passenger flights operations from India might commence before August-September depending upon the circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Saturday, three days after announcing the resumption of domestic flights services from Monday.

After a gap of two months, India’s airlines will be airborne with over a thousand flights taking off on Monday with rigorous safeguards aimed at winning back the confidence of passengers.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri went live on his official Facebook page on Saturday. During this, he answered the questions of many citizens. He clarified that Aarogya Setu app is not mandatory for air passengers and they can instead give a self-declaration form.

Puri said during the session, “I am fully hopeful that before August or September, we will try to start a good percentage of international civil aviation operations if not complete international operations.”

“I can’t set a date on it (the restart of international flights), but if someone says it can be done by August or September? My response is, why not sooner, depending on what the situation is,” Puri said during a live Facebook session.

In a press conference, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri declared Rs 3500 as a lower limit and Rs 10,000 as a higher limit for a journey of between 90-120 minutes. This will run for 3 months-until 1 minute to midnight on August 24, 2020.

Passenger air services have been suspended for both scheduled domestic and international flights since 25 March, due to the implementation of a national lockout following the Covid-19 outbreak.