Three passengers were denied boarding as their RT-PCR reports lapsed by a minute. Among the passengers was a pregnant woman.
Even though air routes are opening up for vaccinated people, the passengers are travelling at the mercy of the airport and airlines officials.
They travel with a whole lot of uncertainty until they reach their destination. In between are PCRs, RT-PCRs, vaccinated, unvaccinated, one dose, two dose, which dose and what dose. Some countries are asking for medical insurance; some are asking for quarantine. Some are welcoming, while some are treating the passengers as unwanted individuals.
This is despite the fact that the whole world is looking for a time when travels become smooth, and fares come to pre-pandemic levels.
One bizarre incident was reported at India’s Bengaluru airport, where three passengers were denied boarding as their RT-PCR reports lapsed by a minute. Among the passengers was a pregnant woman, the Times of India reported.
Even though they would have wasted several minutes multiple of ‘a minute’ in the Queue, they were denied to board the flight as the airline’s ground handlers calculated the 48-hour timing of the RT-PCR test from the time of sample collection to the scheduled departure time of the flight
The passengers were bound to Dubai in an IndiGo flight 6E 95 from Bengaluru.
According to the TOI report, Rukhsar Memon (28), husband Suhail Syed (39) and her mother-in-law Mamtaz Munawar (63), went to the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) to board the IndiGo’s Dubai flight scheduled to fly at 1.15 pm.
Even though they would have wasted several minutes multiple of ‘a minute’ in the Queue, they were denied to board the flight as the airline’s ground handlers calculated the 48-hour timing of the RT-PCR test from the time of sample collection to the scheduled departure time of the flight. The passengers had reached the counter at 10 am.
The passengers had given their samples at 1.15 pm on Sunday (14-11-21), and their flight time was 1.15 pm, Tuesday (16-11-21).
“We were denied boarding for the 1.15 pm flight on Tuesday as the IndiGo ground staff said our initial RT-PCR test reports showed that our samples were collected at 1.15 pm on Sunday,” TOI quoted Suhail, one of the passengers who was denied boarding.
The Indigo ground duty staff, according to the report, confirmed the incident and said they were following the Covid protocol rules.
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