Airlines gear up to fight winter blues

Chandigarh: Airlines have been preparing contingency plans for the past few months. The most difficult part is to train pilots for landing in poor weather and drawing up contingency plans for passenger handling, which often threatens to spin out of control.
SpiceJet has begun training pilots on an Emirates simulator. Deccan Aviation has lined up backup aircraft. But executive chairman GR Gopinath admits there’s not much one can do when the weather’s not favourable.
On the international sector, national carrier Air India has decided to leave Delhi out of its routes from December 15 to avoid the fog. Flights originating from Delhi to Birmingham, Toronto and New York via Amritsar between 10 pm and 10 am have been re-routed to skip Delhi.
Air India is also rescheduling some more international flights.
The Delhi airport has a CAT III-A landing system, but Airports Authority of India sources say airlines have to train their pilots to use it effectively, besides having proper equipment on board.
Non-metro airports, however, face a bigger problem because they are not as well-equipped.
Ten CAT-III B bays have also been selected and more people are being fog-trained to handle domestic traffic in places like Lucknow, Jaipur and Amritsar that are hit by fog.
07/12/07 Gulveen Aulakh & Maheswaran Parameswaran/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, General Aviation Dec 2007