Hyderabad: Clouds over first domestic flights

Hyderabad: Some chaos appears to be on the cards as the skies open partially from Monday. The first flight that is scheduled for departure from Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is an Indigo flight to Lucknow at 5 am.

There is still no clarity on the first flight that would land here after a gap of two months since the scheduled flight from Kolkata at 6.35 am is unlikely to come as the Kolkata airport is still under shutdown due to the impact of Amphan cyclone.

RGIA scheduled flights both arrival and departure is close to 110 but now all that is likely to be scaled down.

The airport administration on its part said it would ensure taxis were sanitised and drivers screened before every trip to eliminate all chances of infection for the passengers. Face mask will be mandatory for both passengers and drivers for taxi travel.

"Incoming domestic flight passengers from Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh will undergo 7-day institutional quarantine followed by home quarantine.

Uncertainty prevails about flights from Mumbai. It is not clear whether flights would take off from Mumbai or not as Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray feels that Mumbai airport should remain closed for some more time.

Though GMR said that they are fully geared and have taken a slew of measures with focus on a seamlessly contact-less boarding experience for passengers, including some stringent safety measures viz. thermal scanning of every departing passenger, the availability of automatic hand sanitiser dispensers at various places, placing floor markers, staggered seating arrangements, allocation of entry gates and check-in islands for departure passengers to encourage compliance of social distancing norms and minimise human contact at the airport, what is worrying them is the way the passengers would react.

To avoid any untoward incident and to ensure that the passengers follow the new rules, the police has been deployed at the airport.