By IANS
New Delhi : Thousands of passengers had a harrowing time at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport of the national capital as a thick fog Wednesday morning led to more than 10 flights being cancelled and over 150 delayed in and out of the capital.
According to airport officials, the safeguard procedures were implanted around 5.30 a.m., when the runway visual range (RVR) fell below 1,000 metres allowing the use of only single runway.
“Around 9 a.m. the RVR further fell to 100 metres allowing only CAT-III B compliant aircraft to take off. The use of single runaway was restricted for more than five hours leading to delays, cancellations and diversion of both domestic and international flights,” an airport official told IANS.
Flight operations limped back to normal around 11.05 a.m.
The officials said during the safeguard procedure only 39 domestic and international flights could operate from the airport.
Five international flights were diverted to Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Karachi, and 13 Delhi-bound domestic flights were diverted to Jaipur, Mumbai and nearby airports.
Jet Airways’ four flights to Leh, Srinagar and Jammu and two Kingfisher flights bound for Agra and Srinagar were cancelled. Two flights to Srinagar – one each of SpiceJet and Indian – were also cancelled.
A few flights of other domestic airlines were also cancelled.
Airport officials said almost all morning flights were affected.
Nearly 150 flights of Kingfisher, Jet, Indigo, Air Deccan, Indian and SpiceJet bound for Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Nagpur and Ahmedabad were delayed for over three hours leading to a ripple effect and a huge backlog. Passengers had to spend nearly one-two hours aboard for their flights to take off.
They could only depart after RVR improved at 11 a.m., when both runways of the Delhi airport were made operational.
“The fog is slowly lifting but we are in the process of removing backlogs,” the airport official said, adding it was one of the worst fogs of the season.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), fog was expected in Delhi Thursday too. The minimum temperature recorded in th4e city Wednesday morning was 8.8 degrees Celsius, which weatherman said was normal for this time of the year.
Train services and vehicular movements also were affected severely in the capital. People were found struggling to steer through the fog-engulfed city roads.
“It took me nearly two hours to reach the IGI airport from my Dwarka home that generally takes only 20 minutes. The traffic was crawling due to dense fog,” said Neha Sehgal, an MNC executive.