Over 200 flights were delayed and at least 17 were cancelled at the New Delhi IGI airport on Wednesday, mainly due to dense fog that resulted in massive inconvenience to passengers.
Sources said at least 207 flights were delayed on Wednesday up to 5 pm while four flights were diverted as well. Sources said flight schedules went awry primarily from 7 am to about 9.30 am on Wednesday when visibility sharply dipped to just about 50 metres.
The runway visual range (RVR) dipped to just about 100 metres. Sources said that between 7 am to 9.30 am, the visibility dipped sharply at all runways of the IGI airport resulting in delays up to several hours and hardly any flight departures. Even in the early hours of Wednesday morning, flight movements were possible largely under CAT-III ILS conditions indicating low visibility. nearly 100 flights operated under the CAT-III ILS guidance. Due to poor visibility at the new runway, it was not operational and only the main runway was functional, the official said. Low visibility procedures were implemented at the New Delhi IGI airport from 1.45 am which lasted till 11.20 am. The minimum temperature in Delhi was recorded at 5.6 degree Celsius as compared to Tuesday’s minimum of 9.3 degree Celsius. People shivered as the minimum temperature fell to 5.6 degrees Celsius, a significant drop from 9.3 degrees the day before, and the maximum temperature slumped to 15.5 degrees Celsius, five degrees below what is the average for this time of the season. The Met department forecast more foggy days ahead.
Also services of over 50 trains were affected on Wednesday, causing much inconvenience to passengers.
Railways delayed departure timings by more than two hours of 10 trains, including four Rajdhani and a Garibrath trains due to bad weather, a Northern Railway spokesperson.
Thirty nine trains were cancelled by railway authorities while services of 14 were partially affected. Maha Kaushal Express is running late by 8 hours while New Jalpaiguri Express is six hours behind schedule.