Chaos after Delhi runway restriction

New Delhi: Get ready for massive traffic jams in Delhi’s airspace - it would mean long hovering time before landing besides waiting inside aircraft or outside for over an hour before taking off.
Rattled by Wednesday’s near-miss and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) order to stop simultaneous take-offs from IGI’s merging runways, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) started restricting the twin use of runways from the evening. This ‘unsafe practice’ had been started last April and saw the hourly aircraft movement capacity go up from 25 to 42. Restricting it has led to a sharp decrease in hourly movement.
On Thursday, simultaneous use was done for only two hours due to a mix of heightened scare, DGCA’s directive and low visibility. As a result, Delhi saw huge air traffic congestion. A couple of flights were even diverted as they were running out of fuel while hovering over Delhi and a delay of one to three hours was common. This on a day when there was no ‘fog’.
The worst part is that simultaneous use of runways cannot take place till atleast June now, when the new parallel runway is made operational. Then, the maximum number of flights per hour will go up to about 60.
21/12/07 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, Safety Dec 2007