Quarantine awaits passengers at 5 reopened airports

It’s all in the fine print and passengers, eager to get to certain provinces, are being met with an unannounced surprise today.

Yesterday 4 domestic airlines – Nok Air, Thai AirAsia, Thai Lion Air and VietJet Air – resumed flights to 14 provincial airports across Thailand. Now the the Department of Airports director-general Tawee Gasisam-ang says travellers landing at 5 destinations, namely Phitsanulok, Buri Ram, Krabi, Trang, and Nakhon Phanom airports, will be quarantined. Not only quarantined but for 14 days.

Tawee says anyone who takes a flight to Phitsanulok will be quarantined for 14 days at home with their families if they are a local, or in hotels that are part of the “Save Phisanulok” program.

However, those who arrive at Phitsanulok airport a connecting flight need not to be quarantined. Those who fly into Buriram must be quarantined as well.

Krabi airport, meanwhile, announced that visitors must show a medical certificate from their point of origin proving that they are free from Covid-19.

Those who do not have a certificate will be sent to a local quarantine centre, the director-general said.

Trang, meanwhile, is ready to receive locals. But those on a work visit must have documents related to their work and a medical certificate from their place of origin and even then will still be quarantined in Trang for 14 days.

The upper northeastern Nakhon Phanom province will allow only passengers to enter the passenger terminal, not their relatives and friends. The province also has barred migrant workers from entering without the specific permission from the governor.

In a related story, Surat Thani province in Thailand’s South has announced mandatory quarantine for its hundreds of residents fleeing home after spending a month trapped in Phuket when the island sealed itself off in late March.

SOURCE: The Nation Thailand