Chandigarh: A blanket of dust haze covered Punjab and Haryana for the third day on Friday, affecting normal life and disrupting flight operations at the airport here.
Barring couple of flights which operated today, as many as 26 domestic flights had to be cancelled due to low visibility levels that included seven of Indigo airlines, eight of Jet Airways, one each of Vistara, AirAsia, SpiceJet, three of GoAir and five of Air India, airport officials said.
Indigo airlines' Dubai flight was to operate from Delhi and all passengers, who were booked to board from here, were shifted to Delhi by road, they said. In view of the prevailing weather condition, some flight operators had on Thursday announced cancellation of flights scheduled for the day, the airport officials said.
On Thursday, over 30 flights were cancelled here as visibility levels dropped considerably due to the dust haze.
Motorists at many places had to switch on their headlights during the day as visibility levels were low.
"I had never seen anything like this before. The situation was not this bad even by the air pollution caused by stubble burning in the months of October-November last year in many parts of Punjab and Haryana," said Baldev Chand, an elderly resident living here.
Layers of dust had accumulated on vehicles in the morning parked in the open during the night. Air quality and visibility levels have been hit by the dust haze.
The meteorological (MeT) department has said that the situation was likely to improve from Saturday.
"The situation should be better from Saturday. A Western Disturbance is approaching the region, which is likely to bring some rain and help dissipate the dust," Chandigarh's MeT Department Director Surinder Paul said.