Kolkata: All airlines on Thursday scurried to send out text messages to flyers booked to travel from Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi to Kolkata from Saturday, informing them that they would be required to reach the airport with an RT-PCR report to board the flights. The state government on Wednesday night had announced that all passengers from four states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Kerala — needed to mandatorily undergo RT-PCR test before boarding flights for Kolkata, Bagdogra and Andal.
“We are contacting all passengers booked on flights departing from these cities and reaching Kolkata after Saturday noon to inform them of the need to adhere to the new protocol announced by the Bengal government. We shall comply by the norms. If any passenger turns up without the Covid report, he or she will not be allowed to board the flight. On a case-to-case basis, we may allow some passengers to reschedule the journey so that they can get the test done. But if too many passengers turn up without the report, it may not be possible to do so,” an airline official said.
Kolkata airport got a taste of what may happen at other airports on Saturday if passengers don’t turn up with valid Covid reports when Port Blair-bound flyers booked on GoAir were denied boarding as they did not have the test reports. They staged a demonstration at the terminal for several minutes.
Travel agents who have booked flights for their clients also called them up to inform them of the new rule. In some instances, they advised clients to reschedule flights if they found the schedule for RT-PCR test too tight.
26/02/21 Subhro Niyogi/Times of India
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