By IANS
New Delhi : With the onset of winter, authorities at Delhi’s domestic airport Wednesday claimed they have made elaborate arrangements this year to avoid disruption of air traffic due to foggy conditions.
“We have learnt from the last year’s experience and are very confident that the situation will not be worse this time,” said Andrew Harrison, chief executive officer of the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL).
“We have undertaken several proactive measures after discussions with airlines, air traffic control, the Met Department, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Delhi Police. A strategy has been drawn to reduce inconvenience to passengers during the fog season,” Harrison told reporters.
The Indian Meteorological Department has predicted that severe fog will affect the flight movements at the Delhi airport between Dec 15 and the end of January.
“Comparing the statistics of the past 10 years, we predict that visibility will fall to less than 200 metres for at least 150 hours during the dense fog period of Dec 15 to January-end. At that time only CAT-III compliant aircraft would be able to operate,” said R.K. Jenamani, director of the met office at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here.
Jenamani told reporters that last year all operations at the airport were suspended at least seven times in December and January.
Harrison said DIAL was working on another strategy with the airlines to systemize the movement of passengers from the extension to the check-in area and onward to the security hold area based on the departure status of their flight.
He added that in case of dense fog, domestic flights would be rescheduled to nearby airports like Jaipur and Lucknow, while international flights will be moved to Karachi in Pakistan.
Arun Arora, vice-president DIAL, said: “The domestic airport will suffer more due to fog as most of the domestic airlines have not trained their pilots for CAT-III. Pilots of international aircrafts are trained in the system as they encounter more foggy conditions in European countries.”
“For this we have asked the domestic airliners to roster their pilots trained with the CAT-III programme to the Delhi airport,” Arora said.
CAT-III is the system that allows compatible aircraft and trained pilots to land even when the runway visibility is up to 50 meters.
Last winter, foggy conditions led to complete chaos at the capital’s domestic airport for many days and airport authorities were unable to handle the mass of frustrated passengers crowding terminals as flight after flight was cancelled or delayed.
Passengers may face a similar situation this year, as many private airlines are not keen to train their pilots on the Instrument Landing System (ILS) that helps flights land and take off even in thick fog.
Among the 13 domestic airlines that operate nearly 170 flights per day, only Indian and Kingfisher are capable of flying in thick fog conditions, when visibility drops to 200m-50m.
A senior airport official said only some of their pilots are trained to operate flights with CAT-III and ILS.
“Private airlines are not training their pilots under this programme as it is very costly and the programme’s dynamics change with the advancement in technology. Airlines only prefer to reschedule flights instead of spending money on training,” the official added.
Last year, DIAL had promised precautions and measures, but despite their efforts passengers were forced to stand in long queues outside the airport building and struggle for the flight information.