‘Need to wait on resuming air travel’: Niti Aayog member

India needs to wait for flights to resume because the air that circulates inside the plane’s pressurised cabin may be conducive to the spread of the coronavirus disease, a senior member of the government’s team to combat Covid-19 said on Friday.

The comments by Dr Vinod Paul, Niti Aayog member and head of the empowered group overseeing the Covid-19 medical emergency management plan, came even as a senior civil aviation ministry official told HT that the ministry was now ready to begin operations, which were suspended when a nationwide lockdown was clamped on March 25. International operations were stopped three days earlier.