The season for flight delays in India is in full throttle as the prolonged spell of dense fog in North India continues for the third day. The envelop of thick fog commencing across the border and now covering almost entire North India including Delhi/NCR, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh affected air traffic heavily today.
Dense fog conditions continued to limit visibility to less than 200 metres in the airfields of Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Agra, Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Varanasi. Till about 8 in the morning, 7 flights were cancelled at the Indira Gandhi International Airport while about 20 were delayed.
Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi
Today was the worst day experienced at Indira Gandhi International Airport this season. Though, the day started on a fairly good note and showed gradual improvement, the visibility dropped again at about 8.30 a.m. and in the span of three hours from 6 a.m. 8 flights got cancelled. The general visibility continued to be zero till about 9.30 a.m. but unlike yesterday, the runway visual range (RVR) was reasonable enough for CAT-III compliant airplanes to carry out take-off and landing. 17 flights have been cancelled till 12 p.m.
Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport, Amritsar
Thick fog has been sitting over Amritsar for more than 24 hours with the day maximum recording 13.8 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, 7 degrees below normal. Ten flights to Delhi have been cancelled for today and the flight delays have raised a hue and cry. Flights to other routes are running on-time.
Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Lucknow
Till mid noon, two flights to Delhi have been cancelled while three have been delayed. Two flights to Mumbai have also been delayed by almost an hour.
Road and rail traffic also bore the brunt of poor visibility conditions. Vehicles moved extremely slowly in most parts of Delhi. On account of late arrival of trains to Delhi, many trains were rescheduled. Rail traffic was disrupted in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and northwest Rajasthan as well. Besides ordinary mail and express trains, Rajdhani and Shatabdi superfast trains were delayed by about 15 hours.
Generally, as we have been saying, rain and snow in Jammu & Kashmir is the pace setter for the commencement of winter in India. However, it is unusual for the thick envelop of fog to persist for three consecutive days in North India in the absence of any significant amount of rain or snow in the hills.
Click here to check today's fog updates for Delhi, major airports and railways in India.
