160 passengers on chartered flight from Rome tested in Amritsar. 125 are Covid+ve

Amritsar airport director VK Seth said the 125 passengers who tested Covid positive are being sent for institutional quarantine in their respective districts in Punjab.

NEW DELHI: Nearly 80% of the 160 passengers on a chartered flight from Rome who were tested after landing in Amritsar have tested positive for the coronavirus disease, airport officials at the Amritsar airport said.

Amritsar airport officials said 19 children on board the Rome-Amritsar flight, who were below the age of 5 were not tested, were not tested. Of the remaining 160 passengers, 125 tested positive. (AFP File Photo/Representativ Image)

The flight, which took off from Rome with a stopover at Georgia capital Tiblisi for refuelling, landed at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, at 11.20am on Thursday with 179 passengers. There were 19 children below the age of five on the flight. Children under 5 years of age are exempted from post-arrival testing, according to the union health ministry guidelines on international travel.

An airport official said the 160 remaining passengers this flight were tested for Covid-19 using the RT-PCR test at the airport.

“160 passengers were tested after arrival out of which 125 of them have tested positive.” one official at Amritsar airport said.

“These 125 passengers of the chartered flight are being sent for institutional quarantine in their respective districts,” said VK Seth, airport director of Amritsar airport.

Initial reports of the large number of passengers testing positive for Covid-19 suggested the plane was operated by Air India. The airline rebutted this version. “Several media houses has reported that passengers of Air India flight from Rome to Amritsar have been tested Covid positive. This is wrong and baseless. Air India doesn’t operate any flight from Rome currently,” Air India tweeted. An airline official said Air India hasn’t operated on this route for months.