New Delhi: This winter, interminable waits at the airport for fog to lift may be a thing of the past. With more and more airlines coming around to training pilots in CAT-III operations, which equips them to fly in visibility as low as 50m, passengers will not have to depend solely on Air India, what with its staff threatening to go on strike from next week.
Since last year, the number of CAT III-compatible aircraft has gone up from 162 to 206. Airlines for long have been reluctant to train pilots in CAT-III operations citing costs. The DGCA and the civil aviation ministry, however, made it clear in January that airlines which did not have a trained fleet would not be given slots in the fog schedule.
"There has been a considerable increase in CAT-III flights this year and we are hopeful that unless visibility falls to zero, we will have operations. Most airlines have an almost-completely CAT III fleet and a sufficient number of trained pilots," said DGCA Nasim Zaidi.
This year, with the exception of Jet and JetLite, all have converted their entire fleet to CAT-III. SpiceJet and JetLite, which till last year had no CAT-III jets, have added to the numbers with the former converting its entire fleet to CAT-III.
First Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009, 09:50