Flights take to skies after 2 months, but face air pockets in some states

NEW DELHI: The Centre’s plan to restart domestic flights from Monday after a gap of two months owing to the Covid-induced lockdown ran into last-minute turbulence caused by opposition from states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
After much persuasion, Mumbai airport agreed to allow only 50 flights on day one – less than a fourth of what India’s second-busiest airport was to see. Air India has decided to deploy wide-body aircraft on the Delhi-Mumbai route to accommodate as many passengers as possible.
West Bengal said a reduced number of flights would be allowed to operate from Kolkata and Bagdogra from May 28 as the state was suffering the after-effects of the devastating Cyclone Amphan. Vijaywada and Visakhapatnam will allow scheduled flights from May 26. Chennai and Hyderabad are learned to have decided on capping the number of flights.
Late on Sunday, aviation minister H S Puri tweeted: “It has been a long day of hard negotiations with various state governments to recommence civil aviation operations in the country…”