North India Battles With Dense Fog; Rail, Road And Air Traffic Hit

New Delhi: Foggy weather condition persisted in Delhi and adjoining areas on Wednesday morning disrupting rail, road and air traffic, with 3 trains getting cancelled.

At least 21 trains were rescheduled and 81 were running behind schedule due to poor visibility, sources told CNN-News18.

Office-goers and tourists also faced difficulties as fog blanketed Delhi-NCR region and marred visibility.

Ten international flights delayed

Ten international flights from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport were delayed due to dense fog. Delhi airport visibility is 125 meters due to fog, sources said.

Vistara, a joint venture between the Tatas and Singapore Airlines, on Wednesday said due to the drop in visibility because of fog in Delhi, their flights to and from Delhi may be impacted leading to consequential delays.

In a similar announcement SpiceJet also made it clear that due to bad weather conditions in Delhi, all departures and arrivals and their consequential flights may get affected. SpiceJet requested all its passengers to cross check their flight status before leaving for the airport.

IGI gears up to battle fog during winter

The Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) on Tuesday announced its preparedness in tackling the fog season at the India Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), to ensure continuity of flight operations during the low visibility period during winter.

"We are fully prepared to handle flight operations this year. CAT-IIIB (the instrument landing system) installed at Delhi Airport is capable of handling flight arrivals with runway visibility range of up to 50 metres," DIAL CEO I. Prabhakara Rao said in a statement.

"We are proud of the team-work displayed by IGIA stakeholders every fog season with a collective aim of enhancing passenger convenience and safety," he added.

The three runways at the IGI Airport-- 28, 29 and 11 -- are certified for CAT III B operations, which would allow landing of the compliant aircraft with visibility as low as 50 metres, while aircraft can take off with visibility of 125 metre, the statement said.

DIAL, a consortium of GMR group, the Airports Authority of India (AAI), and Fraport (Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide), also said that it has made required arrangements to make convenient passengers' stay at the airport by flashing frequent displays of expected delays of flights, introducing additional helpdesks, and deployment of staff at various points, among others.

Other measures taken to ease the travel on the city side include, the use of retro reflective paints along the airport road for smooth taxi flow, adequate lighting in the car parking, and deployment of additional traffic marshals to the taxi flow in fog, etc.

"AAI has made all the necessary arrangements to ensure uninterrupted provision of safe, efficient and orderly air traffic services at IGI Airport. All the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) mandated guidelines and recommendations in respect of IGI Airport, have been implemented by AAI," AK Bhardwaj, General Manager, Air Traffic Movement (ATM)-ATC said in the statement.

- With agency inputs