Over 200 passengers bound for different destinations in the Gulf were barred from travelling on Monday from the Calicut and Kannur International Airports as they had produced RT-PCR test reports showing COVID-19 negative status from a laboratory blacklisted by the governments of the UAE and Dubai.
The airline authorities told the passengers who had arrived at the Kannur airport that they would not be allowed to board the 3.30 a.m. flight as the Dubai regulatory body had asked the airline to reject the RT-PCR reports issued by four laboratories in the country, including a private lab based in Kerala.
In the UAE, as per a new rule, all passengers under 12 must carry a negative COVID-19 test conducted a maximum of 96 hours before the departure, prior to boarding the flight.
The lab in Kerala was banned by the Dubai government after several persons who were issued the RT-PCR test report were found to be positive on their arrival in that country.
K.P. Manzoor, a resident of Panoor, who was returning to Dubai from Kannur after eight months of stay in Kerala due to the COVID-19 outbreak, felt cheated and disappointed.
He said there was no information from Air India Express of any such ban on the private labs and even the lab authorities had told the passengers that they would face no problems.
“When we tried to contact the lab after we were barred from boarding, their phones were switched off and this clearly indicates that they were aware of the ban,” he claimed.
The development created chaos at the Kannur airport. The passengers said that they were unaware of the ban and neither was any information regarding it reported anywhere, including the official social media page of the airline.
When contacted, the airport and airline authorities in Kannur denied the charges against them. The ban on the labs was available in the Arogya Sethu app, and the company had also conveyed it to the passengers, they said.
Senior airport officials in Kannur told The Hindu that Air India had informed its passengers about it. However, they had still turned up at the airport. Officials said those who could not board the Air India Express flight would be allowed to travel in the next flight with the report validated by the approved labs.
Meanwhile, a lab official said they were unaware of the ban while issuing the reports and that there was no intention to cheat passengers. She said to help passengers they are collecting samples afresh and testing them at other labs and providing them with reports.
