India on Monday started its domestic flight operations amid the ongoing fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
After a gap of two months , domestic passenger flight operations were resumed and the first flight took off from Delhi to Pune at 4:45 am on Monday.
However, several flights were also cancelled in Delhi and Bengaluru on the first day of flight operations resumption.
With a large number of flights called off, several people took to social media for last minute cancellations without any prior notice.
Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said that India has taken the decision to start domestic flights after carrying numerous evacuation and essential service operations.
“We brought back more than 30,000 stranded Indians on Vande Bharat flights since 6 May 2020. We flew 917 tons of medical & essential cargo on Lifeline UDAN flights since 26 March 2020,” Puri tweeted.
“Today, we restart domestic flights. India’s civil aviation is always on the forefront,” he added.
Amid much confusion over the stand of state governments in resuming flight services, passengers started to queue up outside airports from the previous night to catch early morning flights back home.
With the resumption of domestic flight operations amid the growing number of coronavirus cases in the country, many state governments had drawn up their own standard operating procedures (SOP) for managing passengers.