Delhi fog blues hit city

TNN / Dec 15, 2007, 03:45 IST

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Hundreds of air passengers arriving from, and travelling to, Delhi were stranded for 6-8 hours at Bangalore airport following late arrival and departure of flights due to heavy fog in Delhi.

BANGALORE: Hundreds of air passengers arriving from, and travelling to, Delhi were stranded for 6-8 hours at Bangalore airport on Friday following late arrival and departure of flights due to heavy fog in Delhi.
Fifteen flights were affected. All flights, except a couple between 6.30 am and 8.30 am, left for Delhi only after 2 pm. Passengers were seen waiting helplessly at HAL airport as the only information airlines provided them was about the thick fog in Delhi and rescheduling.
Similarly, morning flights that had to come in between 8.30 and 9.30 arrived only after 4.30 pm — almost eight hours late.
Flights of all major airlines — Jet Airways, Indian, Air Deccan and Kingfisher Airlines — were delayed.

Senior airport officials said only the Delhi sector was affected; flights to and from other metros were on time.
But flights to Delhi via other metros were delayed. Connecting flights were disrupted in Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai as well.
One official expressed surprise at the delays. "Delhi airport has a category-III landing instrumentation system. So why was it not possible to land in thick fog? You can land with only 100 metres visibility with that system. We can only infer that we are short of aircraft with category-III equipment as well as pilots trained on that system. Even if aircraft do have the latest equipment, it doesn't help if pilots are untrained."
But passengers could not blame the airlines, officials said, as the weather had played truant.
"Delhi's fog gets so thick that easy landing and take-off become difficult."

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