Dense fog disrupts flight services at Delhi airport

Dense fog enveloped the IGI Airport here this morning disrupting the schedule of over 50 domestic and international flights and causing inconvenience to passengers.

Fog started to descend at the airport late last night but it became dense in the morning when the runway visibility at one of the runways dipped below 50 metres at one end, airport officials said.

However, the runway visibility did not drop below 150 metres at the main runway (28/10) and flights were taking off and landing on it.

The visibility kept fluctuating at the third runway which caused some delay in the operations of flights, they said, adding that flights were operating using various categories of instrument landing system.

Around 50 domestic and international flights were delayed from one hour to three hours due to poor visibility.

“Some of the flights were rescheduled and got delayed due to poor weather conditions at the destinations,” airline officials said.

During last night and early this morning, visibility on the main runway 28 was above CAT I (550 metres) while on the third runway 29, low visibility take-off operations (LVTO) were on.

But as the day progressed, visibility also dropped to below 50 metres on the third runway, though for a brief period, affecting the flight operations, airport sources said.

Minimum visibility required for CAT III landing is 75 metres and for low visibility take-off operations (LVTO) is 125 metres.

Besides Delhi, foggy conditions were reported in Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Vizag, Patna and Guwahati leading to disruption in flight movement.

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