Air India’s operations to Hong Kong will now remain suspended for a fortnight upto 3 October.

The Hong Kong government had in September strengthened regulations for airlines carrying covid-19 positive passengers on board its flights to the metropolitan area, South China Morning Post said in a recent report.

“Under emergency health regulations tightened on September 15, any airline that carries five Covid-19 passengers or more, or two consecutive flights with three or more diagnosed passengers, faces being banned from Hong Kong,” the newspaper had said.

When contacted, Air India spokespersons didn’t offer comments on the issue.

A senior Air India official said that the airline will write to Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department to reconsider its decision.

This is the second time that the national carrier’s operations to Hong Kong have been suspended. The country had earlier in August suspended flights of the national carrier after it was found to have carried covid-19 positive passengers on board its flights to the special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China.

Last week, Dubai’s civil aviation authorities suspended the operations of Air India’s no-frill subsidiary Air India Express for a fortnight from 18 September to 2 October, after the Indian carrier was found to have flown covid-19 infected passengers to Dubai.

However, hours later, aviation authorities in the Gulf emirate revoked the suspension, allowing the Indian government-owned airline to resume flights.

India currently has the second largest number of covid-19 infected patients in the world, after the United States of America. The country’s total tally of covid-19 affected people currently stands at over 54 lakh people, with 10.1 lakh active cases, according to data from the Health Ministry.