NEW DELHI: Passengers flying from “at risk” countries into six metro airports will mandatorily need to pre-book their mandatory on-arrival RT-PCR test from the midnight of December 19-20.
The aviation ministry’s order to the effect issued Tuesday says “first phase” will be implemented at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai airports.
Accordingly, the government has asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to advise airlines to check before boarding whether international passengers from at risk countries headed to these six metro have pre-booked their test.
“In case any passenger is having any difficulty in pre-booking, they may not be denied boarding. But it would the airline’s responsibility to identify and accompany such passengers to the registration counter at (arrival) airport for testing,” the aviation ministry order issued by its joint secretary Usha Padhee says.
Referring to a meeting with Union health ministry on December 6, the order spells out some steps that need to be taken urgently in wake of the Omicron variant. “Air Suvidha would be modified to allow passengers to mandatorily pre-book RT-PCR test if they are coming from at risk countries in the last 14 days. Link to the airport concerned website would be provided in the Air Suvidha platform (to passengers) while filling up the self declaration form,” it says.
To ensure a seamless implementation of this order, the aviation ministry has decided to give a lead time to passengers by making it applicable from December 19-20 midnight. And in phase one, six big metro airports have been chosen for the task.
TOI had on December 11 reported that operators of airports in Delhi and some other places have requested the government to make pre-booking RT-PCR a must for at risk arrivals.
Scenes of crowding a few days back had led to nearly half of the 3,000-odd passengers daily flying into IGI Airport from at-risk countries now pre-registering — up from 30% when the new rules kicked in following the Omicron scare.
Almost 85% arriving passengers are opting for the Rs 3,500 rapid RT-PCR test whose report comes in a maximum of 90 minutes, Delhi International Airport Ltd CEO Videh Kumar Jaipuriar had told TOI last Friday.
The Union health ministry list for Omicron at risk countries currently includes: Countries in Europe including UK, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Ghana, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Hong Kong and Israel.
“All at risk arrivals can leave the airport only after getting their report. Someone coming from a non at risk country, say the US, by transiting via an airport in an at risk country, say London/Frankfurt/Paris, does not need to be mandatorily tested on arrival. Someone coming from an at risk country airport, say London, via a non at risk country airport, say Dubai or Doha, needs to get tested. We have made provisions in our Air Suvidha portal to segregate such passengers based on place of origin to avoid no one gets needlessly tested or evade the same,” Jaipuriar had said.
A vast majority of at risk arrivals choose the expensive rapid RT-PCR test whose report comes within 90 minutes, while the cheaper regular RT-PCR test report can take upto six hours.
