HomeAviation NewsAnxious faces, new airport looks and gallons of sanitizer: The new normal at Delhi airport

Anxious faces, new airport looks and gallons of sanitizer: The new normal at Delhi airport

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By CNBCTV18.com Contributor May 26, 2020, 5:23:06 PM IST (Updated)

Anxious faces, new airport looks and gallons of sanitizer: The new normal at Delhi airport
Visibly uncomfortable faces in shields & masks, passengers wearing full body suits and wiping phones and suitcases with sanitizers - these were among the 'new normals' at the airports on Monday as the domestic air travel resumed with limited flights.


Flight services resumed within India on Monday after remaining suspended for two months due to the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Unlike earlier, those traveling hardly looked excited despite the fact that some of them were heading to meet their loved ones after a long time.

Anxious faces

Cabs and private vehicles were already lining up to drop anxious air travelers as I reached Delhi airport on Monday morning. Some were visibly uncomfortable in their face-shields and masks while others were making last minute checks on full body suits. I tried to reconcile this new normal of air travel during COVID-19 in my mind while walking into my airport office.

As the day progressed, it became a melange of chaos and comedy in the terminal building which was getting used to the buzz of passengers after two months.
Most airlines were frantically making last-minute changes to the schedules even as passengers were lugging their bags to the entry gates. I kept looking at the information board which was showing just 25 departures to Mumbai which used to be the busiest sector in the country before March 25.

Airport look: Raincoat, biking goggles

As I settled in, my thoughts were with a friend who was at the Bangalore airport. She had been desperately trying to return to her native place and when air routes opened up, the first available ticket was booked.

Her pre-journey preparations included buying a raincoat, which she was to wear over her PPE. But that's not all. To make her journey COVID-19 proof, she also bought a pair of biking goggles. These accessories were to be a part of her attire long after she landed because what was ahead was a 10-hour journey to the designated quarantine centre in her home district. But that was the last thing on her mind and she was willing to brave the pre-monsoon heat and humidity to reach home.

Back at the airport, many passengers like her were wearing protective suits. Several travelers could be seen succumbing to the prickly itch in the nasal orifices. A colleague bumped into a middle-aged man who had tied his face shield to his nose instead of the forehead as his glasses prevented a tight fit.

While smoking rooms were out of bound for passengers, airport employees were seen sharing such incidents over puffs of cigarette. WhatsApp groups of crew and airport employees were starting to flood with photos from airports and flights across the country.

The winning photo of the day was of a lady who had wrapped her kid in a polythene bag. I prayed for the kid, hoping that better sense prevailed on his mother. With limited knowledge, that was all she could have thought to protect her child.

Meanwhile, flights from other cities started arriving and passengers wanted to ensure that they didn't carry a single speck of the virus to their homes. An inbound passenger was found trying to wash his suitcase with a gallon of hand sanitizer liquid before boarding his cab from the airport. But things got complicated when he realised that there was no more of the sanitizer left to clean his wife’s purse. I wonder how that must have ended back home.

Tough jobs

The housekeeping staff at the airport had the toughest job at hand as the number of passengers kept increasing. The first order of business for several inbound passengers was to subject their face-masks to a rigorous scrubbing in the washroom and the housekeeping staff had to beg them not to dry the masks in hand blowers.

Meanwhile, the ground crew manning the thermal scanner were at their wits end. They tried to explain to the hoards of arriving fliers to stand upright for the mandatory scan. But then, few had the patience to line up . And then, there were oddballs who would prim up before the scanning machine thinking the airport was interested in their photo.

After completing the the post-flight procedures, many frequent fliers were seen scanning the arrival area for a familiar corner. But alas, the wine shop was yet to get permission to start operations.

While punching out in the evening, I came across a commotion outside the airport. A housekeeping boy was having a heated argument with an aged man who had just spat out a mouthful of gutkha on the floor! I tried to reason with the old man about the perils of spitting in public. He left the airport fuming under his face mask.

Guess some things won’t change even in a post apocalyptic world.

(This article is based on the experience of a staff member at Delhi Airport.)
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