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New Delhi: In view of the fog-induced disruptions and adverse weather conditions at various airports, including Delhi airport, causing delays, cancellations and inconvenience to passengers, the DGCA has advised airlines to cancel flights which are likely to be delayed by more than three hours.
The regulator has also reiterated that airlines must communicate information related to flight delays in advance to the passengers via email, message and WhatsApp.
As adverse weather continues to severely impact air travel in the country, the Indian civil aviation regulator has issued a standard operating procedure for airlines to minimize passenger inconvenience during flight delays due to adverse weather.
“The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will issue a standard operating procedure for airlines on better communication and facilitation of passengers to minimize discomfort in view of flight cancellations and delays due to adverse weather,” Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said.
A thick blanket of fog in Delhi since the early hours of 14 January led to the diversion of about 10 flights to Jaipur; also, more than 300 flights were delayed at the Delhi airport, the busiest and largest airport in India. Officials aware of the development said that there was no visibility between 4 am and 10 am on the day, as a result of which flights were unable to depart at all during this period and only 15 flights arrivals were recorded. Under normal circumstances, the airport records around 60 flights, including arrivals and departures per hour. Fog had also affected flights at Chennai, Amritsar, Darbhanga, Guwahati, Bagdogra, Varanasi, Jammu, Patna, Tezpur and Gorakhpur.
While the scenario improved on Monday with better visibility, flight operations continued to be impacted with over 150 flight delays at the Delhi airport and five flight diversions—four flights to Jaipur and one flight to Ahmedabad between 1 am and 5 am on Monday, an airport official told Mint.
“Unlike 14 January, there was continued visibility albeit with windows of fog. The impact on flights will reduce slowly as an aircraft is involved in multiple destinations,” he added.
On an average, an aircraft completes around four flights a day. Hence, a delayed departure results in a domino effect, and impacts departures and arrivals for other destinations over a period of time.
India’s largest airline IndiGo, which operates more than 2,000 flights a day, posted the poorest on-time performance of the day at 21% or nearly 80% delayed flights. This was followed by Vistara at 29.6%, AirAsia India at 30.2%, Akasa Air at 41.8%, SpiceJet at 42.68%, and Air India at 46.8%.
The flight diversions were largely on account of captains not being CAT-III compliant. In aviation, Category III, or CAT III, refers to an instrument landing system (ILS) approach that allows for landing in very low visibility conditions like fog, rain, or snow.
The chaos at airports and in flights also took an ugly turn as a passenger on an IndiGo Delhi-Goa flight assaulted the first officer while the latter, part of the new crew, made an announcement related to flight delay. The incident is being referred to the independent internal committee of the airline for appropriate action and inclusion of the passenger on the ‘no-fly list’ as laid down in regulatory guidelines.
The difficult weather conditions also led to long waiting period for parking for the CAT-III compliant flights on 14 January which landed at the Delhi airport and some arriving flights had to wait about two-three hours to reach the parking bay. In addition, as the DGCA norms limit the maximum flight duty period of a pilot, several flights were further delayed as they had to change the crew despite an idle aircraft.
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Published: 15 Jan 2024, 11:37 PM IST
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