Flights from six cities to Kolkata banned till July 31

The West Bengal Government, in a move to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 in the state, has extended the ban on domestic flights from six cities to Kolkata till July 31. The cities that make it to the ban list include Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, and Chennai. The airport tweeted regarding the same and stated that this ban has been extended on the request of the state government in order to restrict the movement of people from cities where Coronavirus cases are, reportedly, high.

Also, the state government had written to the Civil Aviation Ministry that West Bengal has been witnessing a steep rise in cases, whereas it has been found that a large number of cases have been reported from people travelling from outside with infection. Therefore, the West Bengal state government has now decided to curtail the movement of incoming flights and trains into the state for now.

The temporary restriction on arriving flights to #KolkataAirport from 6 cities viz Delhi, Mumbai,Pune,Chennai, Nagpur & Ahmedabad is on the request of State Govt. to restrict movement from high prevalence cities of #coronavirus cases in order to contain the spread of #COVID19.

— Kolkata Airport (@aaikolairport) July 4, 2020

Domestic flight operations resumed in Kolkata from May 29. All passengers are required to submit a self-declaration form stating that they had not tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two months as per the orders issued by the state government earlier. Reportedly, Kolkata imposed a ban on flight arrivals from six cities till July 19, which has now been further extended to July 31.

With the cases surging, lockdowns are being re-imposed in several parts of the country after the easing of restrictions in recent weeks as officials hoped the outbreak was under control.
As per the records, daily departures have witnessed a huge dip from 65-70 per cent, down to 40 per cent air traffic, because certain flight routes have been blocked. Besides Kolkata, airports in Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad have also restricted the number of arrivals.