Fog engulfs airport, 35 flights delayed

A flight had to be diverted and more than 35 flights were delayed after dense fog enveloped the IGI Airport on Thursday morning, reports HT Correspondent.

A flight had to be diverted and more than 35 flights were delayed after dense fog enveloped the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on Thursday morning. But air travellers might get some respite from fog related delays on Friday as the met department has predicted less chances of a dense fog.

HT Image

Dense fog descended at the airport at 6.54 a.m. on Friday and more than 35 flights were delayed by one to one-and-a-half hours. Flights arriving in Delhi were delayed by one to four hours. Though there were not many delays after the fog lifted around 11 a.m., some flights in the evening were affected due to backlog of flights.

A Mumbai-Delhi SpiceJet flight (SG-851) had to be diverted to the nearby Jaipur airport after it couldn’t land at IGIA due to fog.

Low visibility procedures (LVP) were implemented at the airport between 6.54 a.m. and 10.45 a.m. A total of 83 flights, including both arrival and departures of 62 domestic and 19 international flights, operated during the LVP period.

“My flight was delayed by more than two hours but thankfully I got a message from the airline just while I was leaving for the airport,” said Mayank Sharma, who was travelling to Chennai in a Kingfisher flight.

R.K. Jenamani, Director-in-charge of IGIA met unit, said, “Fog had started developing from 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday but dense fog descended around 7 a.m. on Thursday.”

The new CAT IIIB Instrument Landing System equipped runway of the airport (29/ 11) again failed to operate on Thursday as it is yet to receive a certificate from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for low visibility operations.