Four airlines may face action for not checking RT-PCR report of Maharashtra passengers

India — The Delhi government said it has ordered FIRs against four airlines for carrying passengers from Maharashtra without valid RT-PCR reports.

“The Delhi government has written to the police to lodge cases against four airlines – Indigo, Spice Jet, Vistara and Air Asia,” a government official said.

These cases have been filed under the Disaster Management Act, the official said.

The Delhi government had last week announced that it will be mandatory for anyone travelling to Delhi from Maharashtra to carry a negative RT-PCR report dated 72 hours prior to arrival.

Travellers without a negative report will be placed in quarantine for a period of 14 days, it had said.

The decision was take following exponential rise in Covid-19 cases in the city.

While three of these four airlines did not respond to calls for a response, an AirAsia spokesperson said, “AirAsia India confirms that we are in compliance with guidelines and protocols issued by the respective regulatory bodies. We would also like to clarify that we have not received any information from any authority on this matter.”

The police were yet to register any FIR on this complaint.

Maharashtra on Sunday reported the highest spike of 68,631 fresh coronavirus positive cases while 503 patients succumbed to the infection, the state health department said.

With this, the cumulative caseload in the state mounted to 38,39,338 while the death toll reached 60,473.

Maharashtra is now left with 6,70,388active cases.

Of the 503 fatalities, 210 deaths had occurred in the last 48 hours, the department said.

Mumbai reported 8,468 fresh cases and 53 deaths, taking the tally of the infections to 5,79,486 and the toll to 12,354.

A record 2,73,272 tests were conducted on Sunday, taking the number of samples tested so far to 2,38,54,185, the state health department said in a release.