Three years on, airport visibility instrument awaits implementation

New Delhi: It's been three years since Delhi airport installed CAT III B — an instrumental landing system that enables flights to land even when visibility is down to 100 metres. But it hardly serves any purpose because most airlines have not bothered to train their pilots or equip their aircraft to make use of it.
Air India is the only exception. It has trained pilots and equipped planes. But most private airlines have been avoiding an expenditure of Rs 12 lakh per pilot as fee to make their fleet fog-worthy as most international airlines are.
Two airlines, Jetlite and Spicejet, have no trained pilots at all. And untrained pilots isn't the only problem. India's largest private airline, Jet Airways, can't operate domestic flights in CAT III B conditions because its Boeing 737-family aircraft used within the country are only CAT III A compliant, which means they can land or take off with a trained pilot only when visibility is at least 200 metres.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has made it an annual ritual at fog time to issue stern warnings to airlines that if they don't train their pilots by next winter they will not be allowed to fly to Delhi, where fog in winter is the most severe. Yet it has never followed up its threat with action.
Airlines claim it costs a lot ^ both monetarily (Rs 12 lakh) and in terms of taking the pilot off from regular duty for the training ^ to prepare him or her for CAT III B.
30/12/08 Saurabh Sinha & Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2008