Fliers suffer after fog delays flights

Kolkata: For the better part of Sunday, several fliers suffered as morning fog disrupted flight operations. Although only 11 outgoing flights got delayed in the morning, several subsequent flights were also affected.
"More than 1,200 passengers were booked on those 11 morning flights. Although visibility in Kolkata was suitable for flight operations, bad weather at the destinations made things worse," said a senior Airports Authority of India officials.
Sectors that have small airports or aerodromes, like Patna, Guwahati, Bagdogra and other north-east destinations, were the worst affected. Flights to Delhi and Mumbai were also affected. In the international sectors, flights to Dhaka were the worst affected.
"As a particular aircraft is scheduled to make at least three to four trips a day, the ripple effect continued till late afternoon. We had a tough time to re-schedule flights," said an airline officials. Officials also had trouble accommodating passengers of cancelled flights as no rooms were available at most city hotels.
The Air India Express flight, which had been diverted from Dhaka on Saturday, could take off only on Sunday morning due to bad weather and passengers created a ruckus at the airport. Two international flights to Dhaka were also diverted making the transit lounge of the airport congested.
"This is a perennial problem in winter. Although major airports across the country are equipped with CAT II landing system that allows operation in low visibility, small airports have infrastructural limitations," said a senior Jet Airways commander.
Officials fear such problems will continue during the winter and have requested passengers to give their cellphone numbers at the time of bookings. "If they provide us with their numbers, we can call or send an SMS with the status of flights," added a senior official from Kingfisher Airline's customer care section.
14/12/09 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Dec 2009