Flying somewhere? Best of luck

Flying into and out of the capital has seldom been anything but a dodgy proposition for passengers. And now, with the holiday rush on, air congestion and flight delays seem to be plaguing them even more as problems of weather, infrastructure and airport management increasingly affect flight movements.
If the last weekend was any indication — more than 60 per cent of domestic flights were disrupted, as were several international flights — passengers and airlines alike are in for a bad time.
Things could only get worse, given the blinding fog that religiously descends on Delhi in the first week of every new year.
That Delhi’s air traffic controllers (ATCs) are facing the heat for incidents of ‘near misses’ and their changing stance on the simultaneous use of both runways hardly help matters. The problem with Delhi is that both the primary and secondary runways lie at an angle, so aircraft taking off from one will have its path intersecting the other about a mile out.
With a third runway still a year away, deft management of aircraft movement is imperative. Unfortunately, while air traffic has increased exponentially at all major airports, very few ATCs seem to be available to handle this.
In crisis situations like, say, traffic overload or ATC disruptions, managing the passenger flow would become chaotic, which could lead to potentially dangerous situations.
24/12/07 Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, Safety Dec 2007