Two hours reporting time for domestic flight passengers, separate checks for flyers with quarantine history: CISF suggests new plan

New Delhi [India], April 11 (ANI): Airport security Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has prepared and submitted to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) a new plan for domestic flight passengers when operations resume post the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The CISF, in the new plan, suggested increasing "domestic passengers' reporting timing at the airport to two hours before their flight timing with proper protective gear for example; mask, gloves, and sanitisers."

The CISF suggested keeping a seat vacant between passengers as part of social distancing and urged the civil aviation ministry to allow placing sanitisers at all exit and entry gates of the airports for passengers and employees.

According to the officials, the plan is under consideration and the idea behind it is to seek staggering flights to avoid crowding at airports at any time.

"We have proposed a new plan incorporating necessary precaution in view of the change of circumstances due to COVID-19. This has been sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) for consideration," M A Ganapathy, Special Director (Airport) of CISF, told ANI.

Further, the CISF suggested advising all the airlines to instruct the passengers booking tickets to disclose their home/self-quarantine history. Passengers with quarantine history will be screened at isolation checking point where CISF officers will be wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE) suit.

Passenger flight operations have been suspended across the country since March 25 due to coronavirus.

So far, there has not been any clear indication of the resumption of flight operations anytime soon.

Recently, Minister of Civil Aviation (MoCA) Hardeep Puri tweeted, "The current Lockdown on both domestic & international passenger flights is till April 15. A decision to restart the flights after this period remains to be taken. If required, we will have to assess the situation on a case by case basis."

Civil Aviation Ministry, Airport Authority Of India (AAI), Director General Of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and other stakeholders are working on how to resume the operation post lockdown. The new plan is only for domestic flyers as of now.