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V.V. Krishnan

The IGI domestic terminal I New Delhi on Thursday. Heavy fog disrupted flight schedules. —

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Jan. 1 New Year celebration plans of hundreds of travellers were ruined as flight operations at the Indira Gandhi Airport came to a standstill this morning because of heavy fog. Thirty five flights were delayed and seven cancelled.

On the last two days of 2008, the situation was no better. The thick fog cover that engulfed the city saw airline companies cancel 24 flights, while almost the same number (22) were diverted.

These are not isolated cases. On Christmas day last year, a thick fog enveloped the city, delaying more than 60 flights.

So why is it that despite the third runway in Delhi being commissioned for low-visibility operations, air traffic operations continue to remain affected? There are various reasons. Not only does there have to be hardware on the ground to guide an aircraft in, pilots also need to be trained to adequate levels to be able to land in low or zero-visibility conditions.

At the moment, the country has 1,163 pilots who are trained to land in dense fog conditions, including 781 who are trained to land in CAT III conditions. Almost 50 per cent, or 506 of all CAT III-trained pilots, are with the State-owned airline National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), followed by Jet Airways (160) and Kingfisher (146).

But to be able to land in Category IIIA conditions, not only does the runway have to be visible to pilots from not less than 200 metres, the pilot should also be able to abort the landing at a height of 100 feet. In the case of CAT IIIC landing, the aircraft autopilot should be able not only to land the aircraft but also guide it to the terminal if required.

A survey conducted by DIAL says that airlines have failed to fully utilise the CAT-IIIB instrument landing system in two runways of Indira Gandhi airport here as only 40 flights operated under the system during the 11 days of fog this year.

Only 40 domestic and international flights operated under the CAT-IIIB conditions since November 28 when the airport experienced the first fog of the season, according to data provided by the airport operator, Delhi International Airport Ltd.

Last year, to get over fog-related problems, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation implemented some new operational procedures. These included juggling the take-off and landing sequences of big and small aircraft.

The larger aircraft were asked to take flight in between smaller aircraft taking off. This followed a simple logic: the thrust created by the engines of the large aircraft lifted the fog long enough to allow smaller aircraft to take off, thereby ensuring minimal disruption of flight operations despite inclement weather conditions prevailing over the airport.

Further, DGCA gave an aircraft permission to start its engines only after its doors were shut. This was done as there were instances when an aircraft had been cleared for take off even though passengers were still boarding the aircraft, something which could lead to consequential delays in the departure of other flights

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