Flights disrupted by morning fog at NSCBI airport

Kolkata, Dec 27 (UNI) Early morning fog at the city's NSCBI airport played havoc with flights, delaying both depatures and arrivals till 0820 hours today.

Airport officials said the visibility level had come down to about 100 metres, which is far below the minimum of 350 metres required by the CAT II instrument landinhg system to be operational.

The system had been operational at the airport since December 26.

''It became difficult for us to let any aircraft land here or let any aircraft take off under these conditions,'' the officials said.

The disruption continued till 0845 hrs when the Jet Airways' Port Blair flight took off from the sirport. Later on, a Druk Air Bangkok-Kolkata-Paro flight was the first to land here.

Air Traffic Control sources said that most of the incoming flights had to hover over the airport on an average of 45 mins - one hour.

An Kolkata-bound Indigo Flight coming from Chennai had to be diverted to Guwahati. The flight later returned at 1025 hours. A Jet Airways flight for Bangalore departed about four hours late and a Guwahati-bound Air India flight was similarly held up here for a similar period. A Delhi-bound Kingfisher flight was also stranded at the airport for three hours. It finally left at 0915 hrs.

UNI