States finally clear air for anxious fl ye rs

Passengers wade through the labyrinth of state-specific regulations

NEW DELHI: Air travel across the country was set to resume on Monday, 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.

Instead of following the national guidelines issued by the Union government for all departing and disembarking passengers, many of the states chose to set their own rules: Karnataka, for instance, requires mandatory institutional quarantine for passengers from worst-affected states, while Punjab and Meghalaya have made a swab test mandatory for arrivals.

Several states said passengers will be taken to a facility only if they show symptoms of fever or cough — in line with Union government guidelines released on Sunday — while several among them decided to additionally mandate or suggest self-isolation for either 14 or 28 days, even if a traveller is asymptomatic.

Some other states, such as Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh, said that only state residents will be allowed to enter the city from the airports.

The announcements came a day after three states — Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — requested the Union government to reconsider the decision to allow domestic flight operations to resume as it could lead to a spike in infections. On Sunday, the ministry held several discussions with these states and airline representatives.

“It has been a long day of hard negotiations with various state governments to recommence civil aviation operations in the country. Except Andhra Pradesh which will start on 26/5 and West Bengal on 28/5, domestic flights will recommence across the country from tomorrow,” civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri said in a tweet on Sunday evening.

In the morning, he spoke to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray over video to convince the state to allow some flights to resume.

Shortly after, Thackeray, in a press conference, said: “I spoke to civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri today and told him that the Mumbai international airport needs more time to resume its operations. Till the time the airport plans and finetunes operations, aviation ministry should initiate minimum possible domestic flights from Maharashtra from May 25.”

On Sunday evening, the ministry announced that some 50 flights will operate from Mumbai. “It’s extremely ill-advised to reopen airports in red zone. Mere thermal scanning of passengers, inadequate without swabs. Impossible to have autos/cabs/ buses ply in current circumstances. Adding positive passenger will add Covid stress to red zone. #MaharashtraGovtCares,” Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh said in a tweet.