Infected passenger stopped from boarding flight

The Air India flight to Andaman was scheduled to depart from the Chennai airport at 6 am. The officials checked the medical certificates of the passengers before issuing boarding passes. When they checked the certificate of Marsalam (40) of Andaman, they found that he had tested positive for the virus. They immediately isolated the passenger and cancelled his ticket.

Marsalam said he would travel to Andaman and get treated there, but the officials refused to allow him to travel with the other passengers. The Health Department staff rushed to the spot. They gave Marsalam a PPE kit before taking him to the Chromepet government hospital in an ambulance. Later, the departure terminal in the airport was sanitised.

Meanwhile, 42 flights were cancelled on Tuesday due to shortage of passengers to and from the Chennai airport. Some of the flights that operated had less than 10 passengers, said sources.

Sources said there were only 7,000 passengers on Tuesday, which was even lesser than the number of passengers who visited the airport during the curfew on Sunday. Departure and arrival of the flights from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Indore, Andaman, Bhubaneshwar and Madurai were cancelled.