Airlines in full flight at Delhi airport

Apart from some backlogs of the past few days, operations remained relatively smooth on Tuesday

After three days of disruptions due to dense fog, flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the Capital largely remained normal on Tuesday.



Most of the flights operated as per schedule though visibility was low. However, due to cascading effect of the past three days, about 60 flights were delayed while eight were cancelled. Two international flights - Air France flight to Paris and Continental Airlines flight to Newark - and six domestic flights to Chandigarh, Amritsar, Kolkata, Jaipur and Bangalore were cancelled due to operational reasons, an airport official said.

Though there was fog at the airport and runway and visibility was low since late last night, flight operations remained unaffected, an official said, adding there were no diversions of flights unlike the last three days.
Flight movement improved mainly because Delhi skies were clearer on Tuesday.u00a0

According to a statement from civil aviation ministry low visibility was enforced at the Indira Gandhi International airport for nearly 10 hours. However, not a single flight was diverted or cancelled. The weather bureau, though, predicted a dip in visibility at Delhi during the late evening on Tuesday.u00a0

Delhi airport has been witnessing dense fog since Christmas. Last night, fog enveloped the new runway of the airport, while there was shallow haze on the main and second runways. This led to implementation of low visibility procedures (LVP) at the new runway around 10 PM and flights operated using various categories of instrument landing system.

The LVP was lifted around 7.56 am but again it was implemented when the runway visibility dropped to less than 900 metres around 10 am. It was terminated at around 4.55 pm.u00a0 With visibility largely remaining low throughout the day as fog continued to envelop the airport, authorities had to implement LVP for the third time around 5.44 pm.

Since last night around 302 flights operated using CAT -I instrument landing system. About 300 flights have been affected due to fog in the past three days.