Today, Indian airline Vistara has announced to make temporary changes to its flight services and products on both domestic as well as international flights once the operations resume.
The Tata-SIA airline said that it aims to introduced new operating procedures to minimise touchpoints of human contact onboard by up to 80 per cent.
While the airline will continue to serve food and beverages in all cabins, it will also ensure to reduce the cabin crew’s time spent on aisle and interaction with customers.
On its domestic flights, the service alterations include a reduction in meal choices and withdrawal of services such as onboard sales, welcome drink, hot meals and beverages in premium economy and economy cabins, Starbucks coffee and Turkish towels.
Additionally, water-pouring will be replaced with the distribution of 200ml sealed water bottles on all flights and cold refreshments will be served to customers in premium economy and economy cabins, including to customers opting for Economy Lite fares.
To further reduce the risk of spread of the virus by touch, the airline stated that “it has implemented a temporary fleetwide removal of its inflight magazine and other reading material. Services on international flights will also be reviewed accordingly to curtail contact with customers.”
The cabin crew will wear personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks and disposable gloves at all times.
Emphasising on the need to maintain social distancing, Vistara said, “We shall implement social distancing across all possible passenger touchpoints and encourage the usage of self-service facilities such as web check-in and airport check-in kiosks.
“We will equip all our aircraft with surgical masks, gloves, sanitiser wipes, and contactless infrared thermometers. The airline will also ensure a precautionary check-up with the airport medical support team for any passenger showing symptoms of Covid-19.”