Heena Sharma Blog

Arrival and departure of as many as 80 flights were cancelled at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport on Monday, the first day of phased resumption of domestic flights after a two-month suspension, officials said. Earlier, the flight schedule had been done for all airports, including those in West Bengal (where flight operations will now start from May 28), Maharashtra (which has allowed only 25 takeoffs and 25 landings in a day) and Chennai (where incoming passenger flights are restricted to 25). Domestic flight operations had been suspended soon after the imposition of the first nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus in March 2020. Read More

The queues and tedium of airport travel just got longer, thanks to a new hygiene protocol at airports. Check-in staff observe departing passengers for sniffles, runny noses, and coughs. Coaches taking passengers to and from aircraft are washed down daily with alcohol-based cleaning agents. Infrared thermometers greet all international passengers arriving at Indian airports. The screening of passengers from China had begun on January 17 and was later expanded to cover another 13 affected countries but with the detection of 39 cases, the government has escalated the preventive measures at all airports. Orders for universal screening were issued on Thursday and municipal and state doctors were hastily summoned to help with the task. Passengers arriving at Mumbai and Delhi airports had to wait in a queue for up to 40 minutes for the pre-immigration health check. By Friday, however, the queues had shortened and the waiting time for most passengers had reduced to 5-15 minutes as a