Met expectations? IMD blames DIAL for travellers’ woes

New Delhi: Under fire from all quarters for not being able to forecast the dense fog conditions that wreaked havoc at the airport and on city roads, the Met department on Monday blamed the airport operators for not displaying its weather data for the public. Ajit Tyagi, director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD), said the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) and airline operators need to “introspect” for not giving out sufficient information about visibility and subsequent flight delays to people. “The IMD has been providing every minute runway visual range information on its website. Why can’t DIAL display the information on the screens at the airport?” he asked.
“We have been providing the forecast. However, if 40 domestic flights still had to be diverted, the operators need to introspect,” he said, adding that the Met department has been asking DIAL to display weather and visibility information for quite some time now, but the project has run into rough weather. “If this information is made available, 50% of the problems will be solved,” Tyagi said.
Better fog forecast still two years away: While the Met department has been generating weather forecast on real-time basis based on actual data, it still lags way behind its global counterparts as far as upgrading its fog-forecasting technology is concerned.
By its own admission, it is still two years away from installing modern technologies like the automatic aviation weather decision support system, which are in use at international airports in Paris, Singapore and Tokyo.
27/12/10 Mallica Joshi/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Dec 2010