Nearly 3K int'l passengers arrive at Delhi airport on Thu; 6 test Covid +

New Delhi: Nearly 3,000 international passengers arrived at the Delhi airport on Thursday, including from the UK, France and Germany, and officials said at least six more people tested positive for COVID-19.

Strict norms, including mandatory COVID test, are in place for passengers coming from 'at-risk' countries in the wake of the emergence of the new coronavirus variant Omicron. With the new norms that also require passengers from 'at-risk' countries to stay back at airports till their test results are declared, there have been reports of chaos as people have to wait for long hours.

On Thursday, a Twitter user complained that his wife and toddler had to spent

hours despite taking Rapid PCR test at the airport.

"@DelhiAirport @airindiain My wife and toddler are in the Delhi Airport right now. Despite taking the rapid covid test they are still waiting. (4 hours). Is this fair? And now they find that the toddler's stroller is missing. The height of loot and carelessness. Can someone help?," the user said in a tweet.

In response, Delhi airport tweeted that "this is not the experience we want you to have" and asked the person to provide details to look into the issue.

According to a Delhi airport official, the result of a Rapid PCR test takes around 90 minutes while that for an RT-PCR test is at least four to six hours. The charge for a Rapid PCR test has been reduced to Rs 3,500 from Rs 3,900 earlier, the official added.

The official said that little over 2,950 passengers arrived in international flights from Wednesday midnight till 7 pm on Thursday. Out of them, more than 2,150 passengers took Rapid PCR test while the rest opted for RT-PCR test.

More than five international flights landed at the airport, including four flights from London and one from Paris.

Officials said that six more passengers from 'at-risk' countries have tested positive for COVID on arrival at the airport in the national Capital on Thursday. Their samples have been sent for genome sequencing to ascertain whether they have been infected by Omicron.

As increasing number of passengers have to compulsorily undergo tests, efforts are also on to ramp up manpower for carrying out the tests and related procedures.