Air traffic remains suspended in Kashmir for second day

Srinagar, Dec 7 (UNI) The air traffic between the Kashmir valley and the rest of the world remained cut off for the second consecutive day today as poor visibility at Srinagar airport forced cancellation of all incoming and outgoing flights, including two of Indian carrying Haj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.

Official sources told UNI that no flight could either land or take off from the Srinagar airport, which was enveloped by heavy fog cover with visibility level going down to zero since this morning.

Indian had to operate two special flights today to carry Jammu and Kashmir Haj pilgrims to Jeddah.

Giving details, they said the heavy fog forced cancellation of all the flights of Jet Airways, Indian, SpiceJet, GoAir, Kingfisher, Jetlite and Deccan. Some of the airlines operate two flights a day.

The Jammu and Kashmir government had earlier decided to approach the Union Civil Aviation Ministry for installation of CAT-1 lighting facility at the Srinagar airport to allow landing of flights in poor visibility conditions.

The Director General Civil Aviation had changed the criterion for landing at the Srinagar airport from 1.5 km visibility to 2.2 km.

The change was made at the behest of foreign pilots who were not ready to land at below 2.2-km visibility. In contrast, Indian pilots operated at 1.5-km visibility, which was the case last year also.

UNI