Morning flights delayed till 0830 hrs

Kolkata, Feb 24 (UNI) Poor visiblity due to fog prevented all morning flight operations at NSCBI airport today.

No flights could take off or land till 0830 hrs today, an Air Traffic Control (ATC) official said.

The airport is equipped with Category II Instrument Landing System (ILS) to faciltate safe landing and take off of flights. It remains operative till 350 mts of visibility level. However, since the level dropped below the optimum level, it became impossible for the early morning flights to take off.

The first flight, an Air India flight to Port Blair, scheduled to leave at 0530 hrs was first to leave the airport today at 0830 hrs.

ATC offficials said as many as 20 morning fligfhts were affeced with each flight being delayed by on an average of three hours.

The fog began to descend on the airport from 0200 hrs and became thicker as morning progressed, the ATC official said.

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