Is travel with family by flight safe? Here is first person account

By Akanksha Dean

A FEW MANDATES

Web check-in is a mandate. IndiGo is swift in prompting at each step of the way about. I have booked into Row 1 for our flight to Udaipur as it’s convenient more so as my grandmother is traveling with us. Apart from the web check-in, I generate baggage tags online as well. I also fill in the health declaration, as instructed by the Government of India, another mandate one needs to sign off on before finally getting the boarding pass.

AT THE AIRPORT

The safety gear has progressed to admit you into the airport. Earlier a copy of the ticket and identification worked. Now, the security workforces sit behind a glass partition to safeguard distance from passengers and also scan your boarding pass bar code for a validity check. This slightly slows the process but it’s for our own safety and a good idea is to reach 2 hours prior to departure.

I have booked a wheelchair for my grandmother and the IndiGo staff is all ready for it right at the entrance. The wheelchair is sanitized yet again in front of us which makes us feel more confident. There are many IndiGo personnel at the airport terminal, just that the new procedures make everything contactless, so I work things on my own while one of the kind ladies guides me through it.

My baggage tag and my boarding pass were tagged together to match via a barcode scanner at bag drop. I did not have to touch the machine; only official personnel did. I  put my bags on the belt myself, and immediately received an email and a text message from IndiGo informing me that my bags were collected along with the tracking number and we are right in time for a quick snack before we board the plane.

IN FLIGHT

At the boarding gate, we are handed out our Passenger Safety Kit. On-board aircraft in India, it is a mandate to wear a face mask and a face shield. The kit also includes a couple of sanitizer sachets for use on the flight.

At the boarding gate, we scan in ourselves, rather than IndiGo’s gate representative scanning us in and giving it back. Another example of making sure that there is no contact between the representative and the passenger. Since grandmother is in the wheelchair, she gets to pre-board and I get a little sneak peek into how well the IndiGo workforce team sanitizes the Lean Clean Flying Machine.

I witness each seat and touchpoints on the plane being wiped down with Airbus-approved disinfectants, ensuring that passengers in this shared space are cautious not to have to touch anything that was not sanitized before the flight. What builds more confidence in me most about IndiGo is the powerful, in-built air filtration systems on all of its aircraft which give assurance of the removal of viruses and bacteria.

An incessant top to bottom air circulation cuts the jeopardy of cross-contamination. All the air in the cabin is fully filtered and refreshed every 2-3 minutes. We took off soon after boarding and once airborne, the meal service began….what a flight without food after all? I have pre-booked my parents and me Chicken Junglee sandwiches and a tomato and cucumber sandwich for my grandmother which came with a choice of drink. Though we took off our masks to eat but kept the face shield on.

ARRIVING AT UDAIPUR

Thankfully people adhered to the IndiGo cabin crew’s constant announcements of wearing masks on and deplaning row by row. The wheelchair assistant is all ready for my grandmother and once bags are picked we queue up for temperature checks and contacts noted before we head out to the city of Lakes.

It was the first time we traveled as a family on a flight after the pandemic hit and we felt every bit safe with all the precaution that was being taken at the airport and by the IndiGo at every step of the way in terms of cleanliness and hygiene. The signature Lean Clean Flying Machine suits IndiGo very well.

At the Leela Palace Udaipur too where we stay, the hotel offers us a revised experience, but one is still wrapped in a warm welcome, even if the smiles are concealed by masks.

Thanks chiefly to moderately strict, movement directives, disinfecting measures, and cluster congregation bounds applied by the Leela Group’s Suraksha programme, it is back to somewhat forthcoming normality. We feel safe, if sporadically surreal, but it does not take too long to enthrall this ‘new normal’ into our holiday routing which includes purchasing tons of masks, sanitizers, and sprays.

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