Covid-19 lockdown: First commercial flight arrives in Tripura after two months

The domestic air services in Tripura were meant to start from May 25 but the flights connected to Kolkata were cancelled due to Cyclone Amphan.

The first aircraft with 166 passengers from Kolkata landed at Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) Airport in Tripura on Friday, two months after all air services were banned due to Covid-19 lockdown.

The flight operated by IndiGo Airlines landed at 10 am in Agartala.

“After March 25, total 166 passengers landed here in the first flight today. In the same flight, 167 passengers left for Kolkata at 11.15 am,” airport director VK Seth told reporters.

Besides sanitisation, a foolproof medical screening apparatus was set up at the airport to check all the incoming passengers as well as those at the departure terminal, he added.

The domestic air services in Tripura were meant to start from May 25 but the flights connected to Kolkata were cancelled due to Cyclone Amphan.

Before lockdown, total six aircraft were in operation at MBB Airport, the lone airport in Tripura.

There are 12 airports in the North-East region. They are in Guwahati, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur (all Assam), Tezu and Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh), Agartala (Tripura), Imphal (Manipur), Shillong (Meghalaya), Dimapur (Nagaland) and Lengpui (Mizoram).

Domestic passenger flights were restarted on Monday after a gap of two months. Different North-Eastern states on Sunday issued separate Standard Operating Protocols (SOP) for the passengers.

In Tripura, with the latest 10 cases of Covid-19, the total tally rose to 242, including 162 Border Security Force (BSF) troopers, officers, and their family members. However, the state’s active cases are 72 and three cases migrated to other states.