Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri hailed the resumption of air travel in India by tweeting a live image of the air traffic above Indian skies. The image was taken from Flight Radar 24, an air traffic montitoring website.
“Indians soar in the skies again! A beautiful live capture from #flightradar24 shows how our skies look busy again as domestic civil aviation recommences in India from today,” Puri said in the tweet.
Air travel across the country resumed on Monday, after a gap of two months, with all states finally agreeing to accept at least some flights but announcing varied quarantine and self-isolation rules for arriving passengers to address misgivings about infections being brought in from other cities.
Hundreds of passengers wearing masks and maintaining social distance were seen at airports across the country.
The first flight out of Delhi since lockdown was to Pune, which flew out at 4:45am, and the second was from Mumbai to Patna that departed at 6.45am. Both the flights were operated by IndiGo.
The first domestic passenger flight to arrive at Delhi airport on Monday at 7.45am was from Ahmedabad. It was operated by SpiceJet.
Security and airport personnel in protective gears were seen screening passengers at several airports across the country as fliers observed social distancing.
A large number of flights were also cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Aviation industry sources said, around 82 flights – departures and arrivals – have been cancelled at the Delhi airport on Monday morning, reported news agency PTI.
States like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, which are home to some of the busiest airports in the country, were reluctant to allow domestic flight services from their airports, citing swelling cases of the coronavirus infection in their states.
The West Bengal government did not relent to a request by the civil aviation ministry to allow flight services.
It was decided on Sunday that the state will gradually permit domestic flights from May 28 under strict guidelines. Andhra Pradesh too did not allow any flights on Monday.
WhatsApp us
Pingback: pgslot
Pingback: College Private in iraq