Fog back to haunt IGI

Fog formation and low-visibility conditions have already started affecting flight operations in Delhi. Those irritating minutes of aircraft taxiing may come back to haunt passengers at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Though the IGI Met Department says it is fully prepared to deal with fog and low-visibility,experts say domestic flights may benefit with the mixed mode use of runways,in which domestic operations take place from the main runway,28-10; and international ones from the new runway,29-11. “If we go by previous figures,runway 29 experiences denser fog and low-visibility due to large open areas around it,” said R K Jenamani,Director-in-charge of IGI Met dept. He added that the minor drizzle on Thursday could lead to fog ,the true dynamics of which will be known on Friday. During low-visibility,only Cat III equipped aircraft are permitted to fly. “Standard guidelines are to be followed if visibility falls below CAT III B. We are working on reducing taxiing time,” said V Somasundaram,Air Traffic Management .