200 flights delayed due to fog

After a respite, dense fog came back to haunt the Delhi airport on Thursday and flight schedules went haywire, reports HT Correspondent.

After a respite, dense fog came back to haunt the Delhi airport on Thursday and flight schedules went haywire.

HT Image

For the first time this winter, the annual problem of severe air traffic congestion during fog and flights hovering over the airport for hours too was back.

Almost all passengers who arrived late at the airport on Thursday complained that they had to wait for at least two hours before landing while their aircraft hovered above the airport, waiting for their turn to land.

“My Kingfisher flight was supposed to land at 10.30 a.m. but finally landed at 1 p.m. I got tired after the plane kept hovering for two hours over Delhi,” said Piyush Sharma, who had taken a Goa-Delhi flight.

About 200 flights were delayed, 25 cancelled and five diverted after dense fog reduced general visibility to zero at the Capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

“General visibility remained between zero and 50 metres from 1.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. The dense fog was of highly patchy type, almost like clouds moving on the surface,” said R.K. Jenamani, Director-in-charge, IGIA met unit. He said this December witnessed much more fog days than it normally should.

Dense fog remained at the airport from 1.05 a.m. to 12.13 p.m. on Thursday, during which 101 flight movements took place, a comparatively high number of which were during CAT III-B conditions — 48.

However, till 11.18 a.m., only one runway was being used at the airport, leading to congestion.