Night landing facility at Surat airport minimises risk of flight cancellation

Surat: Frequent flyers to the city have heaved a sigh of relief over installation of night landing facility at Surat airport. This will ensure that the flights to the city will no more be cancelled, which was a regular affair here otherwise.
The arrival of only Delhi-Surat-Delhi flight has been invariably delayed particularly with the onset of winter. Last week saw the flight arriving late on many occasions and it landed after 6 pm on Thursday and Friday, almost six hours beyond its scheduled time of 12.00 noon.
Winter fog in Delhi delays take offs. In the absence of night landing facility at Surat earlier, the flights to the city used to be cancelled in majority of the cases. However, all that is going to change with the installation of new equipment which will ensure flight operations even during the night.
"Due to fog at Delhi airport, the flights were coming late at Surat airport, delaying the return flight as well. This happens during winters," said an Indian Airlines official.
Flights had to be cancelled as it was not possible for aircraft to land in the dark. "We have installed lights on both sides of the runway. This will help the pilots to locate the runway in the night and land safely. The facility has minimised the chances of cancellation. The flights will arrive even if it is dark unlike in the past when they had to be cancelled in the absence of night landing facility," said Ashok Verma, controller, Surat airport.
16/02/09 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Feb 2009