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Centre on Thursday approved the airline's 'Winter Schedule-2021' with 4.38 per cent less flights than pre-pandemic level.

The Winter Schedule is effective from October 31, 2021 till March 26, 2022.

Accordingly, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approved a winter flight schedule of 22,287 flights.

The Winter Schedule-2019 had an approved flight roster of 23,307 flights.

"It may be noted that 22,287 departures per week have been finalised to and from 108 airports," the DGCA said.

"Out of these 108 airports, Sindhudurg and Kushinagar are the new airports proposed by the scheduled airlines."

In terms of airlines, IndiGo had the highest number of flights approved under the schedule.

The airline had 10,243 flights approved followed by SpiceJet at 2,995, GoAir (now known as Go First) at 2,290 and Air India at 2,053.

In addition, Vistara had an approved flight strength of 1,675 and AirAsia India at 1,393.

Recently, the Centre had allowed airlines to deploy full pre-Covid flight capacity on the domestic sector.

The passenger air services were suspended on March 25, 2020 due to the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19.

This sector was reopened on May 25, 2020 with a limited capacity of 33 per cent.

Since then the operational capacity has been decided in consonance with the prevailing Covid situation.