International Flight Passengers ALERT! Negative RT-PCR Report With QR Code Mandatory For Travel
Starting today, all passengers boarding international flights from India will need to produce a mandatory negative RT-PCR report with a QR code that is linked to the original report. Read on for more details.
Starting today, all passengers boarding international flights from India will need to produce a mandatory negative RT-PCR report with a QR code that is linked to the original report in order to ensure that the negative covid report is not fake. The rule is, however, valid only for travelling to countries seeking an RT-PCR report on arrival. The decision, that came into force on Saturday, was taken by the Ministry of Civil Aviation last week after several reports of passengers procuring fake negatives came to light.
“The airline operators are advised to accept only those passengers who are carrying a negative RT-PCR test report with QR code for boarding international flights departing from India after 0001 hours on 22nd May 2021,” the ministry stated.
Subsequently, Air India Express released a statement alerting its passengers. “Effective 22nd May 2021, passengers carrying negative RT-PCR report as per the requirement of their destination country, must ensure that the report has a QR code linking to the original report,” it said.
Notably, international passenger flights from India are currently functional only through air bubble arrangements with 27 countries including the US, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Qatar and the UAE. However, many of these countries have banned flights from India in view of the deadly coronavirus strain in the ongoing second wave of the pandemic.
