Fog returns, delays flights

On Saturday, fog returned to haunt Indira Gandhi International Airport after almost a week. Around 100 flights were delayed, 37 rescheduled and five diverted.

On Saturday, fog returned to haunt Indira Gandhi International Airport after almost a week. Around 100 flights were delayed, 37 rescheduled and five diverted.

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While fog usually disrupts flight schedules between December 10 and January 31, the Met department said fog could occur over three to four more days till March 10.

By 6.30 am, visibility at the airport had dropped to around 50 metres and the runway visibility was down to 125 metres, well below the minimum requirement of 150 metres.

Though many morning flights scheduled to depart before 6.30 am took off as per schedule, the later flights were delayed by hours.

“After visibility improved, massive air traffic congestion delayed many flight operations,” said an official of a full-cost carrier, who did not wish to be named.

Low visibility conditions lasted for nearly five hours, during which 91 flight movements took place, including 25 under CAT III conditions.

SpiceJet flight delayed

The dense fog and a technical glitch grounded the Delhi-Bangalore SpiceJet (SG-501) flight for almost seven hours on Saturday. “Delay on account of the fog, the subsequent congestion and then an unfortunate technical problem in the aircraft constrained us to swap the aircraft, to ensure safety compliance,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.