Fog in other cities throws flight schedules haywire in Mumbai

Mumbai: Mumbai may have escaped a hazy winter till date but a cover of dense fog in the northern and eastern states is having a cascading effect on flights arriving in and leaving from the city.
Fog has thrown airline schedules haywire in places like Kolkata. So flights are arriving in Mumbai way past the scheduled time and this, in turn, is leading to a long queue of flights in the sky waiting to land at the city airport. And, with arrival schedules going haywire, scheduled departures too are increasingly becoming a rarity.
The worst time to fly into the city, say airline officials, is between 9 pm and 12 midnight. And the worst time you can pick to fly out is between 6 am and 9 am, they add, after studying the problem for the past couple of days.
Monday and Tuesday, unlike Sunday, did not see any flight being diverted to other airports but aircraft waiting to land in Mumbai had to hover above the airport for between 20 and 30 minutes.
Most flights have been delayed because of fog in other cities. If they start late, they automatically end up clashing with the scheduled arrivals. So the chaos is that much more, a traffic controller said. Depending on the amount of fuel they are carrying, most flights have to orbit for 15-20 minutes before they can land, he added.
Mumbai airport can handle 20 aircraft landings in an hour. So, if 30 flights queue up for landing, some will wait and some will have to be diverted, a controller said.
17/12/08 Chinmayi Shalya/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2008