Over 140 flights, 80 trains delayed in fog-hit Delhi

More than 140 flights were delayed and 7 cancelled on Friday as poor runway visibility in the morning disrupted operations at IGI airport here.

This is the second consecutive day when more than 100 flights have been impacted by bad weather at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport even as authorities implemented low visibility procedures.

As many as eight departing flights were cancelled, seven of them due to weather conditions, and two were diverted, airport officials said.

According to them, little over 140 flights were delayed and out of them 94 were due to weather conditions that resulted in poor runway visibility in the morning hours. As many as 47 were delayed on account of “other reasons”.

At least two international flights were diverted in the morning. One Air India flight from Paris was diverted to Mumbai while an Oman Air flight from Muscat was diverted to Jaipur, as per the officials.

Over 100 flights were delayed on Thursday as well due to dense fog in the morning apart from 16 cancellations for “other reasons”.

With around 1,100 flight movements per day, IGI airport is the busiest aerodrome in the country.

“I had booked my ticket around two months back. They rescheduled my flight for three times since morning. Now, I am going to cancel it,” said Meenakshi Bansal who had booked a ticket in Indigo from Delhi to visit her home town Dehradun. 

The weather conditions at Dehradun, Chandigarh and Shimla airport were also not favourable. According to sources over 500 passengers were stuck at the airport and waiting for their flights which were rescheduled at several times in the day. 

“I don’t have much cash with me but the food outlets at domestic terminal are demanding cash as their card swapping machines are not working due to server failure. It’s a harrowing time for all of us. The airlines are forcing the passengers to run from one counter to another get the money back,” said Praveen Sethi, who has booked a flight for Bhopal. 

80 Delhi-bound trains including Rajdhani were delayed by several hours while 15 trains were rescheduled due to foggy weather conditions in the northern region, said a senior railway official. According to the Safdarjung Observatory, the visibility was recorded at 400 metres at 5.30 AM which further dropped to 300 meters at 8.30 am.

“It subsequently improved to 800 metres at 11.30 am and to 1,000 metres at 2.30 pm,” the official said.

The maximum temperature was recorded at 24.6 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the year while the minimum settled at 11.5 degrees Celsius, three notches above the season’s average, said a MeT department official. The humidity level oscillated between 98 and 57 per cent. The MeT Department has predicted mainly clear skies for Saturday along with the possibility of moderate to dense fog at some places during the morning hours.