The Kolkata airport authorities today announced it facilitated 76 Indian passengers who arrived from Doha in a chartered flight, following which the terminal building was sanitized.
The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) airport has lately served several international chartered flights which flew in passengers into West Bengal from abroad.
Though daily scheduled international passenger flights remain suspended, countries with air bubbles with India and repatriation flights under Vande Bharat Mission have been bringing and reaching passengers to and from foreign countries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
An airport official today said a narrow bodied Airbus A320 aircraft landed at the Kolkata airport in the early hours around 02:39 hrs carrying a total of 76 Indians. The passengers were flown in a Qatar Airways charter flight QR 540 from Doha.
The official confirmed that sanitization was carried throughout the terminal building following all Covid safety norms. It was learnt that Kolkata airport has of late handled several of such flights from the Middle East with GoAir flights bringing in Indians from Kuwait and Dubai on earlier occasions.
DrukAir chartered flights have also been ferrying passengers to and from Paro airport, Bhutan to Kolkata. Recently, it carried 81 passengers to Bhutan and returned with 34.
Health checks are being done as per standard operating procedure, confirmed the official.
The airport today also had scheduled flights to and from Dhaka by Biman Bangladesh airlines.
In domestic routes, there were scheduled flights today, to and from Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai after restrictions on flights from six cities were withdrawn.
Meanwhile, following the “touchless travel” policy of the MoCA, which encourages for touch free transactions inside terminal, the Kolkata airport has installed low touch contactless kiosks inside the terminal where passengers can do self check-in by scanning barcodes, said the official who also confirmed as safety measure, designated waste bins have been placed at several points in the airport for disposal of PPEs by passengers.