The Kolkata airport has announced that flights from six Indian cities, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, and Chennai will not be permitted to land in the city until July 19. The ban is being placed from July 6. All six cities listed by the West Bengal government have high coronavirus cases, and this is being done in an effort to contain the spread of the virus in the state. So now Delhi to Kolkata flights will have to wait until July 19.
According to news reports, Chief Secretary of West Bengal, Rajiva Sinha had earlier written to the Civil Aviation Secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola, requesting not to schedule any flights to West Bengal from eight cities that have high cases of coronavirus. After deliberations, Surat and Indore have been taken out of the list, and hence the six cities have been finalised. Now, a tweet from the Kolkata airport confirms the ban.
It is informed that no flights shall operate to Kolkata from Delhi,Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur,Chennai & Ahmedabad from 6th to 19th July 2020 or till further order whichever is earlier. Inconvenience caused is regretted.@AAI_Official @MoCA_GoI @ushapadhee1996 @HardeepSPuri @arvsingh01
— Kolkata Airport (@aaikolairport) July 4, 2020
West Bengal has reported rising cases over the last month. Reports suggest that only last week, the state saw 4760 new cases, out of which 4135 were from Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas, and Hooghly.
The ban might cause some level of inconvenience for passengers, as the city of Kolkata has been landing more than 200 flights every day. Of course, Delhi, and Mumbai are the two cities with ever-rising cases of coronavirus, and along with the other four they are now on the list of banned cities for the next two weeks.