Coronavirus: Air India headquarters in New Delhi sealed after employee tests positive

As per established protocol, the Air India has been closed and sealed for two days - Tuesday and Wednesday. It is likely to open on Thursday after sanitisation.

New Delhi: Air India has sealed its headquarters in Delhi for two days to conduct a thorough sanitisation of the building after an employee tested positive for coronavirus, officials said on Tuesday.

"Airlines House has been sealed for Tuesday and Wednesday," an official said.

The employee posted at the Gurudwara Rakabganj Road building tested positive on Monday evening, he said.

This came a day after five Air India pilots, who had tested positive for coronavirus, tested negative in second rounds of tests. "All our five pilots, who underwent the second test on Sunday have tested negative for the coronavirus infection," the source told PTI.

The five pilots fly Boeing 787 planes.

On Sunday, sources had said the five pilots tested positive for coronavirus. "Five Air India pilots have tested positive for coronavirus. These pilots were tested one after one. We suspect it could be a case of faulty testing kit as well," one of the sources had said.

The government-run Air India is the only airline participating in the Vande Bharat Mission, under which the carrier would operate 64 flights between May 7 and May 14 to repatriate around 15,000 stranded Indians from 12 countries on a payment basis.

India has been under a lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the virus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country till now.