The Hindu : New Delhi News : Fog delays about 100 flights

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Tuesday, Jan 08, 2008
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New Delhi

Fog delays about 100 flights

Staff Reporter

Passengers offered free re-booking; train movement also affected

— Photo: S. Subramanium

NO STOPPING: A morning walker braving the cold and foggy weather at Nehru Park in New Delhi Monday.

NEW DELHI: It was another long, agonising day for passengers at Delhi airport as heavy fog on Monday morning resulted in the delay of about 100 flights.

Dense fog caused implementation of Low Visibility Procedures for the second day in a row for nearly five hours during which only the CAT-III-compliant main runway (10-28) was used.

Of its 54 flights being operated from Delhi, Indian Airlines had about 30 delays of one to two hours each.

Seventeen Kingfisher Airlines flights on Monday were affected by fog and the subsequent backlog led to delays by over 45 minutes to one hour. It claimed there were no cancellations or diversions.

Jet Airways and Deccan had about 20 and 10 flights respectively running late all through Monday. “Ten flights were delayed for more than four hours on Monday,” said a Deccan spokesperson.

While SpiceJet claimed no delays at all, GoAir had only one delay. JetLite had about seven delays, while Indigo officials were not available for comment. According to Delhi International Airport (Private) Limited officials, safeguard procedures were initiated at over 3-40 a.m. on Monday morning when the Runway Visual Range (RVR) was 1,300 metres. The Low Visibility Procedures (LVP) were implemented at 6-15 in the morning when visibility fell to 650 metres and it was terminated at 11-30 a.m. when the visibility improved to 1, 400 metres.

The safeguard procedures were terminated at 12 noon. However, due to low visibility the secondary runway (9-27) could be put to use only around 4 p.m. This resulted in a slowing down of operations at the airport as all the pressure was on the primary runway.

The total number of flights operated during LVP was 103, including domestic and international arrivals as well as departures.

According to DIAL, only two flights were diverted, while no flights were rescheduled or cancelled. However, different carriers had about 21 cancellations. While Deccan had the highest number of cancellations at 14, JetLite had to cancel three flights owing to weather conditions and other restrictions.

SpiceJet (Delhi-Jammu-Srinagar), Jet Airways (Delhi-Chandigarh), Indian Airlines (Delhi-Kullu) and GoAir (Delhi-Jammu-Srinagar) had one cancellation each.

“Due to bad weather conditions and poor visibility at Jammu and Srinagar airports, our flight G8-152 had to be cancelled. The passengers were given the options of free re-bookings on GoAir flights on the next available scheduled GoAir service on the same sector.,” said a GoAir spokesperson.

Movement of trains too was affected due to fog and as many as 10 trains coming to the Capital were delayed by 30 minutes to four hours.

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