The Hindu : New Delhi News : One long foggy nightmare

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Thursday, Feb 07, 2008
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New Delhi

New Delhi

One long foggy nightmare

Staff Reporter

Chaos at Delhi airport with more than 120 flights delayed and 28 cancelled

All flight movement held up for over three hours
Visibility down from 1,000 metres to 150 metres

– PHOTO: V. V. KRISHNAN

“DIVERTED, DELAYED, CANCELLED…..”: The sorry state of affairs at Delhi airport on Wednesday morning.

NEW DELHI: After a brief lull, fog returned to haunt Indira Gandhi International Airport here on Wednesday delaying more than 120 flights operating in and out of the Capital.

As many as 28 flights were cancelled and over 18 -- 13 of them domestic and five international -- were diverted to other cities.

Though some aircraft made use of the advanced CAT-IIIB system for landing in the fog, all flight movement came to a virtual standstill for over three hours from 6-30 a.m. to 9-30 a.m. on Wednesday. Segregated use of the airport’s two runways began only around 4 p.m. as fog-induced low visibility ensured that only the main runway that is CAT-III-B compliant was in use till about 1 p.m. It was closed up to 4 in the afternoon for routine maintenance work.

As shallow fog intensified to very dense fog, the airport experienced a sudden fall in Runway Visual Range (RVR) from 1,000 metres to a bare 150 metres at 6-21 a.m. leading to enforcement of Low Visibility Procedures (LVP) that continued for over five hours. Because of fog and poor visibility conditions, all the early morning departures were re-scheduled to 9 a.m.

Since only the primary runway was in use, only 39 flights -- 24 domestic and 15 international -- operated during the LVP. Many passengers were left stranded at the airport, some of them for more than two hours.

JetLite was the worst affected. Of the 32 flights that it operates from the Capital, barring six which were cancelled, all the others were delayed. “During peak hour, a couple of our flights were delayed for about five hours and 40 minutes,” said an official.

Indian Airlines faced 22 delays, while 20 flights operated by Jet Airways were delayed. Around a dozen Kingfisher flights were delayed. The number of delays faced by SpiceJet and GoAir was 12 and five, respectively.

A Deccan spokesperson said about 15 flights were delayed for more than three hours.

The backlog of flights was so heavy that even though visibility improved considerably by noon, flight schedules were affected till late in the evening with almost all flights running behind schedule from an hour to over six hours.

Most of the flights that were cancelled on Wednesday were those bound for Jammu and Srinagar owing to dense fog conditions there.

“Four of our flights were cancelled on Wednesday. Passengers of our Delhi-Chandigarh flight were sent by road in a Volvo bus. The other three flights were bound for Srinagar, Jammu and Leh and we will try and accommodate the passengers on Thursday’s flights,” said a JetAirways spokesperson.

Meanwhile, fog also wrought havoc with the Railways’ schedule and as many as 18 trains were delayed through the morning.

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