COVID-19: Air India partly seals its Centaur Hotel for sanitisation

The ground floor of Air India's Centaur Hotel was sealed for two days on Wednesday for sanitisation after a crew member tested at the temporary facility there was found positive for COVID-19, senior airline officials said.

Air India had sealed its headquarters in Delhi on Tuesday for two days to conduct a thorough sanitisation of the building after an employee who worked there tested positive for COVID-19.

"All hotels are currently closed and Centaur was also not functioning as a hotel. A part of the premises, which was used for conducting tests, has been demarcated for sanitisation adhering to safety protocols, and the crew test is shifted to a different medical office for the time being," an Air India spokesperson said.

The government-run Air India is the only airline involved in the Vande Bharat Mission, under which the carrier is scheduled to operate 64 flights between May 7 and May 14 to repatriate around 15,000 stranded Indians from 12 countries on a payment basis.

India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 74,200 people and killed around 2,400 people in the country till now. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended for the lockdown period.