Saturday, December 25, 2010

Dense fog envelopes Delhi's IGI airport, 75 flights hit

NEW DELHI: Dense fog enveloped the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Sunday morning with visibility dropping to near zero affecting flight operations which led to delays, diversions and cancellations of around 75 domestic and international flights.

Passengers were harassed a lot as many airlines delayed their departure due to dense fog.

About 15 domestic flights from Delhi were cancelled and 12 international, mostly scheduled to depart late Saturday night and in the wee hours, have been rescheduled, airport authorities said.

As dense fog started to descend upon the airport late Saturday night, about 17 domestic and two international flights scheduled to arrive in New Delhi were diverted to Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

Around seven international flights coming to the national capital were delayed by up to three to four hours, airport sources said.

Most of the morning flights were delayed by up to five hours or had be rescheduled for the latter part of the day, as Met department has said that situation is likely to improve after 9.30 when the dense fog (CAT-III A or CAT III B category) may start to lift slowly.

The general visibility at the main and the new runways were less than 50 metres. The runway visibility was below 125 metres.

Airlines also cancelled their flights to Lucknow, Jaipur, Kullu, Mumbai, Leh, Amritsar, Patna, Chandigarh, Goa and Srinagar due to dense fog.

On Saturday night, Air India rescheduled its flights to New York, Chicago and Toronto after visibility dropped below the accepted limit. The flights, which were scheduled to depart between 1.30 to 3.30 am, have been rescheduled to 11.30 am.


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