As India imposed total lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19, commercial flight operations also came to a halt at the Delhi Airport on March 25, 2020. However, in the last 40 days the airport remained functional 24×7 to handle cargo and special evacuation flights being operated in 44 countries including the US, Britain, Germany and Japan, to repatriate stranded citizens from India. Delhi Airport handled around 30,000 stranded passengers, over 12,600 metric tonnes of import and export in 1,000 cargo, including Covid-related medical essentials, fresh vegetables, and over 310 evacuation (arrival and departure) flight movements both domestic and international in this period of lockdown. These flights were operated following the permission of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. “In the last 40 days of lockdown, when the whole country was shut, Delhi Airport remained operational 24×7. During this period, it handled over 1,310 cargo and evacuation flights.
We have handled over 310 evacuation flights through which around 27,500 stranded foreign nationals were repatriated to their country. Also, the airport’s cargo staff have ensured that the movement of medical essentials is fast, for which we have made special arrangements. DIAL employees from operations, housekeeping, ARFF, apron control and cargo, etc, along with CISF and ATC, have shown their sense of duty and worked round-theclock to make this possible,” a DIAL spokesperson said. Delhi International Airport has created a dedicated medical distribution facility for processing and distribution of imported medical essentials to the medical institutes and hospital at various cities in the country and all these materials were being distributed through roads as well as by air by private airlines like Vistara, SpiceJet, Bluedart and IndiGo and by Indian Air Force and Air India. On an average, Delhi Airport has been handling around 30 cargo and evacuation flights every day. Over 500 personnel from DIAL’s operations, from different teams have been part of this round the clock.