Will Chandigarh airport beat fog with new landing devices?

Chandigarh: Chandigarh airport, considered a gateway to Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, grounds to a halt for several days every year thanks to dense fog. But it is looking at better days at last with the CAT-III Instrument Landing System (ILS) being installed. ILS is a crucial device that helps in the safe landing of an aircraft during foggy conditions and low visibility.
"Airports Authority of India's (AAI) technical team from New Delhi is here and calibration of ILS is going on. This device would be commissioned in a week's time," airport director H S Toor told IANS.
"The ILS device is from Thales company and it has been imported from Italy at a cost of around Rs 1 crore," he said.
A CAT-I ILS device installed earlier has been lying defunct for the last year and a half at Chandigarh airport. As a result, things were difficult for pilots during overcast conditions, leading to frequent flight cancellations.
Over a dozen flights arrive and depart from this airport daily and all the major airlines like Air India, Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Go Air and MDLR operate from here.
Every day, two Indian Air Force (IAF) planes fly to Leh town and Thoise military airfield in Ladakh from Chandigarh airport.
13/01/11 Indo-Asian News Service/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Jan 2011