New Delhi: Alert for air passengers! Those who are planning to taking flights in the coming days will be de-boarded if they are not found to be wearing masks properly inside airplanes or don't follow Covid appropriate behaviour.
In absence of any respite from the Covid-19 situation, the warning has been issued by the regulatory body Directorate General of Civil Aviation on the microblogging site Twitter. In a notification issued on Saturday, the regulator said if a passenger violates protocol despite repeated warnings then the passenger will be treated as 'unruly passenger'.
It's been a year almost, but the infectious disease seems to be rearing its ugly head again as the country recorded a fresh surge as it recorded the highest daily rise on Saturday since December 20, when the infections recorded a new high at 26,624.
This development comes amid the the Delhi High Court direction to the DGCA for offloading 'without delay' delinquent passengers who wear their masks on the chin and be put on a ‘no-fly list if they exhibit ‘stubborn reluctance.
Sharing details about his own experience, Justice C Hari Shankar of the Delhi High Court said that many passengers on the Kolkata-Delhi flight had worn their masks incorrectly and shown resistance when pulled up by the cabin crew, adding that the cabin crew was helpless in implementing the mandated protocol.
"In the event of any passenger being unwilling to follow this protocol prior to the flight taking off, the passenger should be offloaded without delay. If a passenger, despite being reminded more than once in flight, refuses to follow this protocol, action should be taken against the passenger in accordance with the guidelines issued by the DGCA or the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, including placing the passenger on a no-fly regimen, either permanently or for a stipulated, sufficiently long period," the Delhi High Court said, according to the news agency PTI.
It is to be noted that passengers flights were banned in wake of nationwide coronavirus-induced lockdown in 2020. However, flight services resumed from May 25, 2020, in a 'graded manner' after permissions from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
From time to time, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the DGCA have shared elaborate guidelines on the mandatory use of face masks and maintaining social distancing in airport terminals and inside the aircraft.