Healthy elderly can fly; Aarogya app not must for air travel: Puri

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  23.05.2020

The Centre reiterated on Friday that domestic flights to all places would resume from Monday, despite resistance from Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, and termed as “impractical” calls for quarantining domestic flyers after they disembark.

Aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said the healthy elderly wouldn’t be stopped from flying and the use of Aarogya Setu App was preferable, but not mandatory, for air travel.

Airlines opened bookings from Thursday after DGCA okayed a schedule of 8,216 weekly domestic flights from Monday, a third of the original summer number of 24,643. All airlines are taking bookings for travel from May 25 except GoAir (June 1). Till 5 pm on Friday, over 1 lakh tickets were sold, 60,000 by market leader IndiGo alone.

Some states’ anxiety unfounded: Puri

Domestic passengers are pre-cleared. Some of the anxiety which is being shown would have been there at any time. Now we have been under lockdown for 57 days and are opening after three days. Between March 25 and June 1, what’s going to change? We are going ahead with this. And if some states feel anxiety (about allowing domestic flights) and quarantine people for some days, that is not practical. We would face the same issue even if we were to start on June 1,” Puri said.

The places opposing domestic air travel from Monday are “accepting trains and the number of people coming by air is very small. I personally don’t see any problem (with everyone coming on board for domestic flights from Monday),” he added.

“There’s tremendous pentup demand, as is visible from the number of bookings made in a few hours. We are not sending passengers from abroad. Even those coming from abroad are doing so after taking all precautions, and then states have all quarantine facilities for them. Here we are bringing in (domestic) passengers who are making declarations when they do a web check-in. They have to tick boxes about things like not coming from a containment zone or not having tested Covid-positive in the last two months. Only if they fulfil these conditions are they given boarding cards,” Puri said.

About restricting the very elderly from flying, the minister said: “This is an advisory applicable not just to the elderly but also to pregnant women and people with health issues. Initially, only those who need to travel will travel. If you are aged and healthy and need to travel, you can travel. Similarly, the use of the Aarogya Setu App is also preferable, not mandatory, for travel. A healthy elderly person will not be stopped from travelling”.

In a day of drama, Air India informs HC middle-row seats won’t be kept vacant

In a day of drama in a virtual proceeding, Bombay high court first directed Air India to keep middle-row seats vacant as DGCA had instructed in its March 23 “social distancing” circular, and later in the evening, the airline informed HC that the ministry has withdrawn that requirement through a fresh circularon Friday, reports Swati Deshpande. On May 22, DGCA announced recommencement of domestic operations from May 25 with fresh guidelines. DGCA said its March 23 social distancing guidelines “stand superseded”. When domestic flights restart, middle seats won’t be left vacant. An HC bench modified its order and granted liberty to the petitioner, Air India pilot Deven Kanani (51), to amend his petition and challenge the new circular. The petition said social distancing is the only preventive norm and the circular requiring a vacant middle seat was binding on the airline. The Air India counsel argued it was operating non-scheduled flights and theirs was an operation to repatriate lakhs of Indians in a Vande Bharat Mission, hence it was not binding.