India won’t allow commercial flights to operate until it is confident that the coronavirus outbreak is under control, the aviation minister said, piling further pressure on the country’s cash-strapped airlines. The ban will be lifted only when the government determines that the virus is no longer a threat, Hardeep Singh Puri wrote in a Twitter post.

Airlines had been selling tickets in advance even though the government said there’d been no decision on allowing them to operate, Puri wrote in a series of tweets. Airlines will be given “sufficient notice and ...