Agencies

India Resumes Domestic Flights: The first domestic flight took off from New Delhi for Pune at 4:45 am, days after Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri made the big announcement on resumption of flights.

Two months into coronavirus lockdown, India resumed domestic flights this morning bringing relief to the aviation sector that has been facing huge losses since the pandemic began.

The first domestic flight took off from New Delhi for Pune at 4:45 am, days after Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri made the big announcement on resumption of flights.

Among the states that had initially resisted the decision, Tamil Nadu has listed out SOPs for the passengers arriving in the state.

Last week, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu - home to some of the country's busiest airports in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai - had red-flagged the centre's plan to restart passenger flights

Last week, Hardeep Puri had indicated that the government was not in favour of quarantining passengers on short-haul flights and that the larger question of quarantining would have to be dealt with in a "pragmatic manner". "Why are we making a fuss over quarantine? Positive cases won't be boarding and there can be asymptomatic people. The quarantine issue will be dealt with in a pragmatic manner. We can't have 14 days quarantine... it is not practical," the aviation minister said.