New Delhi: Air operations at the IGI
airport were disrupted on Tuesday due to dense fog, affecting the
schedules of over 35 domestic and international flights.
"After a clear day yesterday, IGI airport was
blanketed with dense fog leading to cancellations of 11
flights. Twenty-four inbound and outbound flights were
rescheduled and two were diverted as the runway visibility
dropped to 150 metres late last night," an airport official
said.
Fog started to descend on the airport around 10.30 pm
and the runway visibility started to deteriorate forcing the
airport authorities to implement low visibility procedures and
flights were operating with the help of instrument landing
system.
The runway visibility further dropped to less than 150
metres around midnight, disrupting the schedules of
international flights.
Flights from Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and
Beijing were delayed by upto three to four hours.Due to this,
outbound flights to these destinations had to be rescheduled,
sources said.
Though visibility improved in the wee hours and the
runway visibility increased to 1500 metres for the main runway
and hovered around 500 metres for the new runway, it once
again dipped to a low of 950 metres and 350 metres in the
morning.
Eight domestic flights to Srinagar, Amritsar, Imphal,
Patna and Allahabad were either delayed or rescheduled due to
poor weather conditions in those cities.
Some flight, which were scheduled to arrive late at
night, were also rescheduled due to poor visibility at the
Delhi airport, sources said.
Trains services disrupted
Dense fog in parts of North
India again disrupted rail services today with 14 trains being
cancelled and several of them rescheduled.
"The large number of cancellations this morning was
done due to the foggy weather conditions in some places in
North India and the cascading effect of last Saturday`s train
accident near Tundla," a Northern Railway spokesperson said.
The cancelled trains include the Taj Express, the
Shan-e-Punjab Express, the Kaifyat Express, the Amritsar
Express and the Mahabodhi Express.
Railways have already announced cancellation of 19
other trains till January 31.
The spokesperson said five trains including the Poorva
Express to Howrah, Sampark Kranti Express to Bhubaneswar and
the North East Express to Guwahati have been rescheduled
today.
He said 24 trains including the Rajdhanis` from
Rajendra Nagar (Patna) and Bhubaneswar were reported to be
running several hours behind schedule.
PTI
