NEW DELHI: The government has said that it was monitoring the situation and trying to bring some improvement in the system performance after flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport went for a toss due to the heavy fog.
As many as 500 flights, both domestic and international, flying into and out of the IGI Airport have been affected since Sunday, when the city witnessed the worst fog of the season.
“Really sorry for all the delays and inconvenience caused. We have been continuously monitoring the situation and trying to improve the system performance,” junior civil aviation minister Jayant Sinha said in a tweet yesterday.
Sinha also invited suggestions to improve the system performance.
His remarks came in response to a tweet by Sanjiv Kapoor, the Chief Strategy and Commercial officer of Tata-SIA run Vistara airline, on the “terrible” flight delays at the Delhi airport.
Significantly, both private airport operator and airlines had claimed full preparedness to carry out flight operations on their parts ahead of the fog season.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), general visibility improved to 200 metres at the Delhi airport yesterday as compared to zero metres over the past two days.
Yesterday, the runway visual range (RVR) was between 800 -1000 metres. This is also an improvement, as the RVR was in the range of 50-100 metres in the last two days.
Take-offs at the Delhi airport require a minimum RVR of 125 metres and landings can take place with a minimum RVR of 50 metres.
“Operations this morning are normal thus far as visibility at DEL is within minimums, but may change at short notice,” Vistara airline informed passengers on Twitter yesterday. The airline is also allowing passengers to change or cancel their flight bookings without any penalty.
“Dear Mr Sinha-Terrible delays yesterday and the day before due to fog on DEL. Entire system thrown out of whack,” Kapoor had tweeted earlier.
In the tweet he also said that the airline had allowed free changes and cancels for Monday and also yesterday.
“Dear Mr. Sinha, really appreciate your response. Some observations and ideas on potential airport/ATC SOP changes to reduce hours spnt on board by pax and crew awaiting departure turn at times like this, which we will share via email. Thanks for your support. Regards (sic),” Kapoor said in another tweet. (AGENCIES)
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