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Tall claims by airlines, that they are equipped to face the winter fog, fell flat again with more than 100 flights out of 150 at Delhi airport getting affected due to poor visibility and the huge backlog thereafter.
Among the worst-affected was Simplyfly Deccan (formerly Air Deccan), whose 51 flights to and from Delhi were delayed and 12 cancelled. Jet Airways' three flights were cancelled and 12 delayed, while Kingfisher's 54 flights were delayed.
The low-visibility period, which lasted eight hours, (with lowest runway visibility range coming down to 125 metres), required pilots with CAT-III B capability. Indian Airlines, the only one with CAT III B-capable pilots, landed three flights during this period.
CAT III A-compliant pilots are allowed to land at visibility of up to 200 metres while only CAT III-B compliant pilots can land if the visibility range is below 200 metres.
During the day, the national carrier cancelled three out of 41 flights, while 32 were delayed.
While most of the flights were delayed due to fog, the huge backlog led to even more delays. For instance, most of the 13 Indian Airlines flights were delayed because of late air traffic control clearances.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's recent announcements, most airlines except Deccan, SpiceJet and Jetlite had claimed that they had adequate CAT III-compliant pilots. While Jet claimed it had more than 50 CAT III-compliant pilots, the airline could make no landing under CAT III conditions today.
Also, IndiGo, which claimed to have got CAT III B certification from the DGCA, had all its arriving flights diverted to other airports like Jaipur and Nagpur. Out of the nine flights scheduled out of Delhi, three were cancelled and the rest delayed.
Deccan's delays, of course, were expected since it has a crew of only four CAT III pilots. It has applied for 25 more.
"We had our aircraft ready, but we were not allowed to operate by the airport authorities, who said the visibility was too low. However, we were among the first to be cleared as soon as the fog lifted," said Bruce Ashby, CEO, IndiGo Airlines.
The only saving grace was arrangements by the Delhi International Airport Ltd, the airport operator, for the stranded passengers. DIAL recently set up a cabin at the departure terminal with a capacity of 300 extra people.
Apart from that, it has appointed 60 customer care executives to take care of the passengers and set up a call centre for giving flight information to the passengers.
