Airlines gear up to fly to foggy Delhi

Chennai: Airlines are gearing up to fly into a foggy Delhi as the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA) has permitted flights to land and take off when visibility is as low as 125m as against the 150m last year.
In Delhi, fog often reduces visibility considerably, forcing pilots to depend on intruments to land on runways equipped with Cat III A or Cat III B landing system. The months of November and December are usually the season for fog in the national capital while Chennai airport experiences low visibility for a couple of days close to Pongal in January.
Foreseeing trouble, airlines have started training their pilots while flying scheduled flights after the procedure was allowed by the aviation regulator. "Earlier, pilots were trained only on simulator. Now we have started landing using auto pilot at airports even when visibility is 6km. Rules say that a pilot should make six or more such landings and two successful attempts on simulator before getting cleared for duty on the Delhi sector," said a pilot.
Though statistics are not available, apart from Air India, not many airlines are completely geared up to fly in reduced visibility conditions at Delhi, said an airport official. Last year, Air India's schedules were the least affected when fog disrupted traffic at Delhi airport.
Private airlines fear that shortage of trained cockpit crew may come in the way of smooth operation of flights if schedules go haywire from Delhi. Dense fog is a nightmare for airlines because disruptions throw schedules across the country into a disarray.
17/11/10 V Ayyappan/Times of india

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Categories: Airports Nov 2010