Civil aviation ecosystem fully prepared to resume domestic flight services: Hardeep Singh Puri

We were spared the devastation as we stopped flights from Covid-19 hostspot countries, says the Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

When can we expect the airlines to resume operations?
As far as the ministry of civil aviation and all the stakeholders in the civil aviation ecosystem are concerned; this includes the ministry of civil aviation, the Airports Authority of India, the airports in different cities; we have been ready to resume domestic civil aviation for the last one week or so. We are absolutely ready and we could start domestic civil aviation at any time with a little bit of notice. Obviously, if you get the green signal today, it will take two or three days for airlines to open bookings and for us to be able to calibrate the number of flights we can start with. However, I want to draw your attention to some basic positions which I have outlined in the last few weeks. I said that civil aviation cannot be divorced from the ground reality. Coronavirus as we are aware came from the outside world. It is not an Indian-grown virus.

The Prime Minister was extremely farsighted because we were able to see the shape of things very early in the day. We were one of the first countries in the world to stop flights from China. We were also one of the first countries in the world which started screening incoming passengers from some countries which were widely regarded as hotspots for the virus; countries like Italy, Iran, even South Korea at some point of time and China. We were one of the first to stop flights from China. I recall being complimented by a senior colleague from a Prime Minister of another country with whom I have worked. He said that is a very timely step. I sent him a message back saying the Prime Minister was able to take this decision because we saw the shape of things to come.

The Prime Minister took early action and we were able to screen people. We screened about 15 lakh incoming passengers and made quarantine arrangements because we were able to take those early measures and because the Prime Minister ordered a lockdown early on, i.e., 23 March. Because of this, we were spared the kind of devastation which other countries have been subjected to. We have a population of 1.35 billion and if you look at the total number of deaths, they are around 3,000.