New Delhi: At 12.05pm on Friday, Air India flight AI-381 made a smooth landing at Indira Gandhi International Airport. Though half an hour late in arriving, the 234 passengers from Singapore were delighted to step on home soil after two months of anxiety and uncertainty. Their relatives weren’t allowed to meet them, and yet the relief of being back in India made them grin, wave their hands and give the thumbs up sign.
It was only around 3pm that the scrutiny of the passengers got over. The first lot of the stranded Indians being brought home from abroad under the Vande Bharat Mission, the returnees had their documents inspected and then underwent medical checks to ascertain their Covid status. Only after this three-hour exercise did they board the buses organised to take them into quarantine at hotels in Aerocity, Dwarka and south Delhi. Travellers from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh were driven there in other buses.
In a tweet, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal welcomed the passengers and assured them that all arrangements had been made for all Indians arriving in Delhi from other countries.
Till Friday, the number of coronavirus cases in Singapore had logged 21,707, with 20 deaths. So, the arriving Indians will spend 14 days in paid quarantine in the designated hotels before they can be reunited with their families at home. “The residents of Delhi will stay in 8-10 hotels that have been readied in New Delhi, south and southeast Delhi as well as at Aerocity,” said a government official.
The spokesperson of IGIA operator Delhi International Airport Limited said the SOP for handling passengers on repatriation flights envisaged social distancing during boarding and disembarking. “The airlines, their ground handlers, DIAL staff, immigrations, CISF and Customs will be supporting the Airport Health Organisation (APHO) and Delhi government in the operations,” the spokesperson said.
09/05/20 Times of India
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It was only around 3pm that the scrutiny of the passengers got over. The first lot of the stranded Indians being brought home from abroad under the Vande Bharat Mission, the returnees had their documents inspected and then underwent medical checks to ascertain their Covid status. Only after this three-hour exercise did they board the buses organised to take them into quarantine at hotels in Aerocity, Dwarka and south Delhi. Travellers from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh were driven there in other buses.
In a tweet, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal welcomed the passengers and assured them that all arrangements had been made for all Indians arriving in Delhi from other countries.
Till Friday, the number of coronavirus cases in Singapore had logged 21,707, with 20 deaths. So, the arriving Indians will spend 14 days in paid quarantine in the designated hotels before they can be reunited with their families at home. “The residents of Delhi will stay in 8-10 hotels that have been readied in New Delhi, south and southeast Delhi as well as at Aerocity,” said a government official.
The spokesperson of IGIA operator Delhi International Airport Limited said the SOP for handling passengers on repatriation flights envisaged social distancing during boarding and disembarking. “The airlines, their ground handlers, DIAL staff, immigrations, CISF and Customs will be supporting the Airport Health Organisation (APHO) and Delhi government in the operations,” the spokesperson said.
09/05/20 Times of India
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