Britain’s Heathrow Airport Turns Down Requests For Extra Flights From India Amid Rising Covid Cases

The airport also told news agency Reuters that it did not want to exacerbate existing pressures at the border by allowing more passengers to fly in.

London: In the wake of the rising cases of coronavirus in India, Britain’s Heathrow Airport on Thursday refused to allow extra flights from India as the country is added on Friday to Britain’s “red-list” of locations from which most travel is banned because of the pandemic.

The statement from Britain’s Heathrow Airport comes after it detected more than 100 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in India.

A total of 2,95,041 fresh infections were registered in a span of 24 hours in India, while the active cases crossed the 21-lakh mark.

Britain’s Health Minister Matt Hancock said the country has made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the Red List and this means anyone who is not a UK or Irish resident or a British citizen cannot enter the UK if they’ve been in India in the previous 10 days.

Earlier, the BBC reported that the Heathrow Airport has refused extra flights from India adding it turned down the requests from airlines because of concerns about queues at passport control.

The airport also told news agency Reuters that it did not want to exacerbate existing pressures at the border by allowing more passengers to fly in.

India on Wednesday reported nearly 3 lakh fresh covid cases pushing its total tally to 1,56,16,130, while the death toll increased to 1,82,553 with a record 2,023 daily fatalities.

Registering a steady increase for the 42nd in a row, the active cases have increased to 21,57,538, comprising 13.82 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has dropped to 85.01 per cent.