Air India Delhi Office Shut For 2 Days As Staff Tests Positive For Coronavirus

New Delhi: The Air India headquarters in Delhi has been shut for two days after a peon tested positive for coronavirus. Everyone, including the Chairman and Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola, will work from home, the national carrier said on Tuesday.

The office is being sanitised. There are up to 200 people, including visitors, in the building at any given time, according to officials.

The man who tested positive for COVID-19 is in home quarantine.

Yesterday, five Air India pilots believed to have coronavirus tested negative. All Boeing 787 Dreamliner pilots, they had reportedly had false-positive results because of faulty test kits. Re-tests had been carried out on priority because of suspicion that the results may not be accurate.

A technician and a driver have also tested positive. It is unclear at the moment whether the two will be re-tested. Both remain in quarantine.

The five pilots tested false positive after 77 pilots of the state-run airline were tested for the virus on Saturday before they could operate any repatriation flights. None of the five pilots, all based in Mumbai, had any symptoms and were advised home quarantine.

The last time any of them operated a flight was on April 20.

NDTV has learned that these five pilots stood together in queue for their RT-PCR test. It is believed that the batch of RT-PCR kits they were tested with may have been problematic.

Billed as India's largest peacetime repatriation exercise, Air India is carrying out "Operation Vande Bharat", the first phase (May 7 and May 15) will see around 15,000 people brought back on 64 flights.

(Inputs and image from hindustantimes.com)