Day 3 of domestic flights: Airports handle 354 departures till 5 pm, says Puri

• Domestic services resumed on Monday after a gap of two months, and 428 flights were operated within the country that day
• 'Till 5pm on day 3 today, there have already been 354 departures & 288 arrivals with a total of 47,917 people at various airports,' said Puri

A total of 354 domestic flights carrying 47,917 passengers were handled by airports across the country between 12 AM and 5 PM on Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

Domestic services resumed on Monday after a gap of two months, and 428 flights were operated within the country that day. On Tuesday, 445 domestic passenger flights were operated in India.

All scheduled domestic services were suspended in India from March 25 to May 24 due to restrictions in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"Till 5pm on day 3 today, there have already been 354 departures & 288 arrivals with a total of 47,917 people at various airports. The numbers continue to grow," Puri said on Twitter Wednesday evening.

Domestic passenger flights are currently permitted to operate from all airports in the country except the ones in West Bengal.

West Bengal had not agreed to the resumption of domestic flights from Monday as it had just been hit by cyclone Amphan.

On Sunday night, the Central government announced that domestic passenger flights will begin in West Bengal from Thursday.

Other states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu had also opposed the resumption of flights due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

Therefore, on Sunday night, the central government had said that airports in these states will be handling a significantly reduced number of daily flights from Monday onwards.

This led to hundreds of last-minute flight cancellations, causing immense problems to passengers.

On Monday, around 630 domestic flights were cancelled.

India has been under a lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus that has infected more than 1.5 lakh people and killed more than 4,300 people in the country till now.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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