Delhi: Flight operations unaffected, but more fog likely

New

, Dec 28: Flight operations remained unaffected at the Indira Gandhi International airport here for the third consecutive day today though low visibility procedures were adopted due to

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"Though there were 54 delays and six cancellations, but it was either due to poor weather at the destination or some operational reasons," airport sources said.

Fog started to descend on the airport from 10 PM Thursday and the runway visibility at the third runway reduced to 700 metres, forcing the airport authorities to implement low visibility procedures. But on the main runway, visibility was 1,200 metres.

The LVP were implemented on main runway at 12.51 AM, when the visibility dropped to 350 metres. "The visibility dipped on the runway between 2 AM and 5 AM, but as it was way above the required minimum of 125 metres and 150 metres for small and large aircraft, there was no disruption," they said.

"Arriving flights had to use various categories of instrument landing system," they said, adding 87 flights landed with the assistance of various categories of ILS. Of these, 52 with CAT-I (when visibility was upto 550 m), 19 flights with CAT–II (when visibility was between 550 and 300 me), 16 flights with CAT–III (when visibility was between 300 and 50 m).

According to the MeT office, airport may witness fog from tonight and visibility may reduce to 300 metres by tomorrow morning.

Flight operations were badly hit due to dense fog early this week leading to delay, cancellations and diversions of over 300 flights. But for last two days, operations are normal despite moderate to shallow fog at the airport.

PTI