After the coronavirus cases in the country witnessed a sudden spike after the festive period and state such as Maharasthra making it mandatory for travellers to show Covid-19 negative reports, a case of negligence has come to the fore in which a senior member of Air India Express’s cabin crew was on duty despite the airlines being aware that she tested positive for Covid-19. Also Read: Pfizer Seeks Emergency Approval For Its Covid-19 Vaccine In India, UK To Begin Vaccinating From Dec 8

As per the report in the Hindustan Times, the Air India employee got the report of the Covid-19 test almost 50 minutes before the flight. As per the report the airline had admitting that the employee had tested positive and informed it will be probing the matter.

What’s the negligence?

The 44-year-old woman employee had taken an RT-PCR test on November 12 and the result came in before the scheduled flight from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport. The newspaper had access to the crew member’s report and her schedule for flying the next day on November 13. However, the employee took a flight and returned to her base station (Delhi) [via the return flight] and was quarantined from the next day.

There have been cases in which travellers from India were found to be covid-19 positive after landing in Dubai and Hong Kong.

However, as per the report, the said Air India flight was a Delhi-Madurai flight, for which a pre-flight RT-PCR test is not mandatory. The affected crew member was to operate the international sector the next day and hence took the test. However, she was quarantined from November 14 onwards, and no other fellow crew members were found infected.

It is not clear whether the infected employee was symptomatic or not. On the other hand, there are allegations of officials trying to manipulate the employee’s report data in the scheduling system as the system didn’t show that this senior employee had undergone the RT-PCR test on November 12.

As per the rule, a crew member can operate few domestic flights until his/her test reports are awaited, which is allowed in order to avoid a situation of crew shortage for airlines.

Some aviation experts are calling for a detailed inquiry into the matter to understand if there has been a blatant violation of safety norms and Covid-19 protocol and whether the employee was forced to take the flight.

In the past, the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) had suspended Air India Express flights between India and Dubai on October 2, which was withdrawn the same evening. In this case, the suspension notice was issued after a passenger on a Jaipur-Dubai flight was found to be Covid-19 positive. However, Air India Express had offered an apology to DCAA before getting the notice and the airline and the ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) had to hold discussions with Dubai authorities, following which the suspension order was lifted.