Day 1: 630 flights cancelled, quarantine confusion

According to aviation industry sources, 630 of an estimated 1,150 domestic flights for which bookings opened on May 22 were cancelled after some states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu allowed only limited operations or delayed reopening of their airports owing to a spike in coronavirus cases.Consequently, many passengers reached the airports only to be told by the airline staff that their flights have been cancelled. Many took to social media to vent their anger.

Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday, “From no domestic passenger flights yesterday to 532 flights and 39,231 passengers today, action has returned to Indian skies.” He also reposted an AAI tweet which had posted a picture of several aircraft dotting the Indian skies. “A beautiful live capture from #flightradar24 shows how our skies look busy again as domestic civil aviation recommences in India from today,” the tweet said. Besides cancellations, there was confusion over quarantine procedures too.

‘Being Min, I am exempted’

After flying from Delhi to Bengaluru on Monday, Union Minister and BJP MP DV Sadananda Gowda was allowed to skip institutional quarantine and opt for home quarantine. Speaking to the media later, Gowda maintained that the quarantine guidelines were exempted for him as he is a minister, whereas the rules are applicable to other citizens. Incidentally, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram who also landed in Chennai on Monday, was sent to 14-day home quarantine, as per guidelines to be followed.

As domestic flight services resumed at Chennai airport after two months, no major hiccups were encountered, but a few flights had to be cancelled due to lack of passengers, claimed airport officials. The first flight scheduled to take off to Madurai at 6 am had to be cancelled. Airport officials also said there were only 29 passengers, including two children in the first flight which arrived from Delhi at 8.30 am. Similarly, the flight which arrived from Bangalore at 10.30 am had only 36 passengers. Another flight which was supposed to arrive from Bangalore at 7 pm besides another flight scheduled to Delhi at 4 pm were cancelled due to shortage of passengers.