COVID-19: Amid Omicron scare, Chennai Airport creates exclusive corridor for screening of passengers arriving from 'at-risk' countries
Dec 06, 2021
New Delhi [India], December 6 : In compliance with the revised travel guidelines issued by the Centre and Tamil Nadu government in view of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Airport Authority India's (AAI) Chennai Airport has created an exclusive corridor at T4 terminal to screen arriving passengers from countries at-risk.
As per a statement issued by AAI on Monday, the facility can seat 500 passengers at a time as it is mandatory for passengers to wait till the Covid test results are out.
"Facility for registration for RT- PCR and Rapid PCR, sample collection and payment are provided at the same level. This is in addition to pre-booking and pre-pay facility extended to arrival passengers online to save time during the screening process," read AAI's statement.
As per the AAI, the Rapid-PCR at Rs 3400 gives the result within 30-45 minutes from the time of collection of samples, while RT-PCR at Rs700 takes 5-6 hours for providing results.
Several passenger conveniences line reclining chairs, F&B outlets, baby feeding rooms and money exchange facility have also been arranged at the T4 terminal among others.
In coordination with the state health department, the airport authorities have also arranged a facility for the collection of random samples (2 per cent) from travellers coming from countries excluding those enlisted as countries at-risk.
"The test is done for free by the state health department and the process is smooth and quick," stated AAI.
Further, the AAI shared a testimony of a passenger and said that they are "satisfied with the arrangements made in quick time, in fact in less than 12 hours at T4 terminal."
"An average of 700-800 passengers are being tested at Chennai Airport every day from at-risk countries alone," said AAI.
