Fog disrupts operations at Delhi airport 140 flights affected

New Delhi: Dense fog at the Delhi International Airport (DIAL) today disrupted operations for over two hours leading to delays and diversions of around 140 flights causing inconvenience to passengers.
While schedules of around 131 domestic and international flights were delayed from half-an-hour to three hours, nine flights had to be diverted to Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Lucknow as visibility at the runway dipped below 50 metres.
Of the nine flights, six were diverted to Jaipur, two to Ahmedabad and one to Lucknow. The minimum visibility required for a CAT-III B compliant aircraft to land using the instrument landing system (ILS) is 50 metres.
A senior airline executive informed, “Usually the visibility required for landing at and departing from Delhi airport is 75 metres and 125 metres respectability. With visibility dropping below 50 metres, operations were affected till around 9.30 am.” Fog started to envelop the airport soon after midnight but it thickened around 6.30 am. No planes could either take-off or land at the airport between 7 am and 9.30 am.
Read news in full 16/12/13 Sharmistha Mukherjee/Business Standard