Govt relaxes visibility range for aircrafts

FOGGED OUT
PTI
NEW DELHI, DEC 26
Dense fog in the Capital on Sunday led airlines to cancel, divert or delay around 100 domestic and international flights putting thousands of passengers to hardship prompting Government to step in with new steps like relaxing visibility criteria to mitigate the problem.
Around 38 flights including three in the international sector were cancelled while around 42 flights, including 14 international had to be diverted to Hyderabad, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Lucknow as the runway visibility in the IGIA dropped to less than 100 metres for several hours, according to Government and Airlines officials.
As IGIA terminals descended into chaos, passengers remained stranded for hours at the airport amid reports of angry exchanges with airline staff forcing security personnel to intervene to bring calm.
No flight operated for nearly two hours from midnight due to zero visibility, airport sources said.
Some 30 flights were delayed while Air India has rescheduled its flight to Chicago, New York and Toronto.
“The departure of Air India flight AI 101 to New York has been revised to 8.30 am tomorrow, AI 127 to Chicago and AI 187 to Toronto have been rescheduled for 9 and 9.30 am respectively,” an Air India spokesperson said.
Two of the three cancelled international flights were departing ones – Austrian Air to Vienna and Etihaad’s flight to Abu Dhabi while the other was an incoming flight (Gulf Air from Bahrain).
With airline schedules going haywire after dense fog enveloped the Capital since last night, Civil Aviation secretary S N A Zaidi reviewed the situation with stakeholders including officials of airlines, DIAL, Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Metereology Department.
Under the new rules put in place, the visibility range has been relaxed and brought down from 175 metres to 150 metres for operation of large aircraft and 150 metres to 125 metres for smaller planes, Zaidi told reporters after the meeting.
This step will facilitate flight operations at a lower visibility conditions and reduce delays, he said.
However, he said no flights will be operated if the visibility is lower than 50 metres.
The fog began to envelop the airport from around 7 pm Saturday evening reducing visibility to zero and remained dense for about 17 hours.
Also, aircraft which are not compliant with category 3B conditions (low visibility) will follow a separate “fog schedule” and such flights will be allowed to land only after 10 am.
The new measures will also ensure that airlines do not carry out boarding of passengers till the visibility has reached 125 metres.
Directions have been also given to airlines to ensure they will adopt all possible means like e-mails and SMSs to keep the passengers informed of the latest status of flights.
“At present, at least 300 aircraft are category 3B compliant and about 2100 pilots are category 3B trained. So we have a large number of aircraft and pilot who can land during low visibility conditions upto a visibility of 50 metres,” Zaidi said.
Under category 3B instrument landing system, a flight can operate if the visibility is more than 50 metres.
“We’ve also taken a step that aircraft which are not compliant with category 3B conditions will follow a separate fog schedule,” he said.
Those aircraft which are not compliant with the 3B instrument landing system will land only after 10 am when the visibility is good. These aircraft, if they come to Delhi, will have to follow this rule, he said.
“The Ministry has taken a number of steps to ensure that during fog and low visibility period, the safety of flight operations is maintained and inconvenience to passengers is minimised,” Zaidi said.
“It is further reiterated that ministry and DGCA attached paramount importance to safety of flight operations during fog period,” he said.
More troubles are in store for passengers with the Met Department making a forecast that the visibility at Delhi Airport would go down to Cat 3 conditions (100 meters visibility) from 10 PM tonight. It expects the situation to continue till 9 am Monday morning.
161 flights were operated today under Category 3B low visibility conditions.
“Met Department will update information on six hourly basis. If there is any significant change, the Met department will also issue their report earlier than six hours,” Zaidi said.
“We have further issued directions to airlines that they will adopt all possible means to keep the passengers informed which includes e-mails, SMSes and interactive voice recording system,” he said.
The Civil Aviation ministry also directed the Delhi International Airport to ensure that all passengers, who are in the check-in area and boarding area, are kept informed through their flight information display (FID) systems.
“150 FIDs have been installed and 75 in boarding areas will have dedicated pages to display the flight information,” Zaidi said.
Delhi International Airport has also been asked to provide additional chairs, food and snacks. There is provision for 1,200 seats at present.
“We have also reached an understanding between air traffic control and airlines that when the visibility improves suddenly, and when there is a scramble for take off, there is certain order, which has been agreed to among the airlines and ATCO. This will avoid unnecessary problems that arrive in the sequencing of aircraft,” he said.
“Diversionary airports such as Lucknow, Jaipur, Udaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai are all in a state of readiness to receive aircraft which will be diverted from the Delhi airport and all of these airports are equipped with category 1 visibility equipments,” he added.