Chaos at airports courtesy ATC again

NEW DELHI, February 3: Passengers of Scandinavian Airlines flight SK 968 to Copenhagen spent the entire day sitting inside the aircraft. ...

NEW DELHI, February 3: Passengers of Scandinavian Airlines flight SK 968 to Copenhagen spent the entire day sitting inside the aircraft. After having checked in, the passengers boarded the flight scheduled to take-off at 10.15 a.m. and sat in it till it finally flew out of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport at 3.30 p.m.

This time round, the weather had nothing to do with this delay, but the new Air Traffic Control tower did. Airlines say it’s because the Air Traffic Controllers’ go-slow strike’ but the ATCs say it’s because of the new Raytheon system, to which they reluctantly moved recently.

The ATC Guild had been reluctant to use the new Raytheon radar installed at IGI airport and have repeatedly pointed out glitches in it. Their reluctance resulted in repeated delays in making the new system operational. The Guild’s other demand has been the implementation of the Wadhwa committee report which recommended a 50 per cent pay hike for ATCs.

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Ever since the system was formally made operational on January 1, there have been “minor problems” with the system. Delays have been happening off and on. But today, the delays were longer, most airlines were affected and work at both the international and domestic airports was disrupted.

A Scandinavian Airlines official says: “From the day the system has been installed, there have been problems. Today, we were told that we were number 20 in queue and when we moved to the second place, we were informed that our flight plan was not with the tower. We had to rush a new plan to them and after all the confusion, our flight finally took off at 3.30 p.m.”

SK 968 was just one of the many flights that stood on the tarmac for hours awaiting flight clearance. Jet Airways officials were scheduling and re-scheduling 20 flights till late in the evening, all of which had been delayed. The reasons according to them: “ATC is on a go-slow strike”. Indian Airlines had six flights delayed in the evening and the reason they gave were the same. Sahara had similar trouble.

Passengers boarded their flights, the crew took their position and then everybody waited. The delay got longer and the confusion bigger with every passing hour at both IGI and the domestic airports.

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ATC officials, however, deny that they are on a go-slow strike. “There are some of our employees who are agitating, but that has nothing to do with the normal operations of the tower,” clarifies a ATC officer. “There have been delays and that is only because of the new system. Airlines need to adapt themselves to this system, just like us.”

According to ATC officials, airlines are not sticking to their scheduled flight plans and the new system does not retain schedules for a very long time.