Covid-19: Nearly 80 flights in Delhi, over 20 in Bengaluru cancelled, chaos at airports on day 1

Passengers whose flights were cancelled said they did not get any prior notice from airlines.

There was confusion at many airports as domestic flight operations resumed on Monday after two months. Several flights were cancelled in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities, and passengers complained that they did not get any prior notice from airlines. Long queues were seen at airports due to the delay in operations and screening.

Around 80 flights to and from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport were cancelled on day one of resumption, ANI reported. Airport officials told NDTV that cancellations occurred as several states told the Centre that they will not be able to operate flights agreed upon earlier.

The Delhi airport will handle a total of 125 departures and 118 arrivals today. “We were told when we arrived here that the flight has been cancelled,” a passenger said. “One of the customer care employees told us that there is a flight that runs tonight and that may be, we have been rescheduled. But nothing is confirmed yet.”

Passengers at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport also claimed that their flights were cancelled. People boarding Air India’s Bengaluru to Hyderabad flight had similar complaints and said they did not receive a prior notice from the airline. “Only when our boarding passes were scanned at the airport entry we were told that boarding has been cancelled,” a passenger told ANI. “We don’t know what to do now.”

The Mumbai airport, meanwhile, said as many as 20 flights operated to and from the city till 12:45 pm on Monday, PTI reported. Unidentified airport officials told the news agency that they received around 1,900 passengers on day one of the resumption of flights.

More than 20 flights were also cancelled in Bengaluru, according to The Indian Express. As of 1 pm, five flights have also been called off to Odisha, the director of Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar told ANI.

Several flights to northeastern states were also cancelled. “We were expecting 32 flights in Guwahati today but only eight are arriving,” Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told NDTV. “Many flights were cancelled.” Flights to Agartala, Silchar and Dibrugarh have been cancelled due to disruptions at the Kolkata airport.

Several passengers took to social media to air their grievances against airline operations.

Here are some pictures from airports across the country today:

Several states had opposed the Centre’s decision to resume domestic flights amid a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases. Maharashtra’s, India’s worst-hit state with over 50,000 cases, had asked the Centre for more time to prepare for incoming flights but said later that it would allow 25 flight to take-off from Mumbai and 25 others to land in the city. Multiple state governments have mandated quarantine for passengers arriving via domestic flights, trains and buses.

On Monday, India recorded 6,977 new coronavirus cases – the biggest single-day increase in numbers so far. With this, the total number of cases reached 1,38,845 and the toll rose to 4,021 after 154 new fatalities. India is now among the 10 countries with most cases, according to theJohns Hopkins University.

Follow today’s live updates on the coronavirus pandemic here