15-day suspension slapped after two fliers tested Covid positive revoked
Hours after the suspension of flights by Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) from India to Dubai for 15 days after two fliers tested positive for coronavirus, Air India Express on Friday evening announced that flight operations will begin as originally scheduled from September 19.
The announcement was made by the Air India Express on its Facebook and Twitter pages late on Friday. “Attention passengers from/to Dubai! All Air India Express flights from/to Dubai will operate as per original schedule w.e.f tomorrow, September 19, 2020 (sic),” the airline tweeted.
Earlier on Friday morning, the DCAA temporarily suspended Air India Express flights scheduled to resume from September 19 to October 2, for 15 days alleging that two coronavirus positive passengers flew on board the flights on two separate occasions despite having Covid-19 positive test reports, a day before start of mega T20 cricket event ‘Indian Premier League’ in the UAE.
The Air India Express earlier submitted a letter to DCAA expressing its profuse apologies and detailing various actions taken in association with the concerned ground-handling agents to guard against such lapse in the future.
The airline announced that it had introduced additional flights to Sharjah to accommodate passengers who had already booked their flights to Dubai, and also given them option to re-book on a future date.
Five flights, each to Kozhikode, Delhi, Mumbai, Kannur and Thiruvananthapuran, had been rescheduled for this purpose,
The latest case happened on board a Jaipur to Dubai flight on September 4. Besides, the DCAA also penalised Air India Express to bear all medical and quarantine expenditures of the COVID-19 positive patients who have been ferried to Dubai.
The world’s biggest T20 league has been moved out of India due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will be played in the UAE. The first IPL match is scheduled to be held between Mumbai Indian and Chennai Super Kings from Saturday in Dubai.
As per the UAE Government rules, each passenger travelling from India needs to bring an original COVID-negative certificate from the RT-PCR test done 96 hours prior to the journey.
In a letter to the airline, the DCAA has named the passenger concerned who was seated on 4C on board flight IX 1135. The said passenger was issued a Covid positive test report on September 2 by a diagnostic centre in India, said the letter naming the passenger and the diagnostic centre.
“Boarding a passenger with Covid-19 positive test result for the second time, is contrary to and is in violation of the laid down procedures and/or protocols relating to air travel to and from airports in the Emirate of Dubai, during the pandemic. Therefore, all operation of Air India Express to Dubai is temporarily suspended for a duration of 15 days, effective from 00.01 hours on September 18 until 23.59 hours of October 2,” the letter said.
“In addition to the suspension of operation, you will be further notified to pay all the expenditure incurred by the respective authorities for medical services and/or quarantine of any passenger(s) and the other passengers in the flight and also any other expenditure connected thereto,” the letter added.
The letter referred to an earlier intimation made to the Airlines on September 2 for boarding a passenger with a coronavirus positive test result.
In order to resume flights to Dubai, Air India has been asked to submit a detailed corrective action plan implemented in letter and spirit to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.
“Air India Express has received the ‘Notice of Suspension’ from Dubai Civil Aviation Authority on September 17, 2020, as per which the airline’s operations to Dubai airport are temporarily suspended for a duration of 15 days w.e.f September 18, 2020.The Notice has been issued on account of the erroneous acceptance of one Covid-19 positive passenger by the airline’s ground handling agents at Delhi and Jaipur on Air India Express flights to Dubai on August 28 and September 4 respectively,” the Air India said. “Passengers who were seated in close proximity to the Covid-19 positive passenger on each flight have undergone a Covid-19 test / been quarantined as determined by the Dubai health authority,” it said.
Airline officials said that the ground handling agencies concerned have taken appropriate punitive action against their employees who have been held accountable for the lapse at Delhi and Jaipur.
In August, Air India was banned from operating flights to Hong Kong for two weeks for “carrying too many passengers infected with Covid-19.” The Hong Kong government had acted after 11 passengers on Air India flight 314 from Delhi on August 14 tested positive for the coronavirus, with officials blaming poor preflight testing for the infection.
