Fog hits flight movement at Netaji airport

Kolkata: Dense fog early on Saturday morning, disrupted flight movement for nearly six hours at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport here.
While some flights were delayed, some had to be diverted owing to poor visibility. The first flight could take off only at around nine in the morning.
Airport Authority of India (AAI) sources told The Hindu that flight movement remained suspended from 3.30 a.m. to 9.10 a.m. as a thick cover of fog descended on the runway leading to a drop in visibility below 50 metres. Flight schedules too went haywire.
An Air India flight from Bangalore, which was scheduled to arrive at 8.35 a.m., had to be diverted to Bhubaneswar and reached here at 11 a.m. Again, a Kingfisher Airline flight from Chennai was diverted to Guwahati following dense fog at NSCBI Airport.
Several other flights to destinations such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Port Blair, Agartala and Ranchi, among those were delayed by an average of 50 minutes.
Air India’s flight to Port Blair was the first flight to take off at 9.10 a.m. Sources in Air India and Kingfisher Airlines said that the early morning delays were bound to effect the schedule of flights throughout the day.AAI sources at the airport said that a dip in temperature and high humidity are the causes for such dense fog and predicted more such foggy days during the season.
25/01/09 The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009