After a day's respite, a thick blanket of fog again engulfed the Indira Gandhi International airport this morning causing inconvenience to passengers as 31 domestic and international flights were delayed, 19 were cancelled and three diverted to Mumbai.
About 19 early morning flights for Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Bikaner, Ludhiana, Udaipur, Rajkot and Ahmedabad were cancelled as the general visibility dropped to below 50 metres and the runaway visibility range dipped to 100 metres in the wee hours, airport sources said.
This was much below the required minimum of 150 metres for the aircraft to take off in poor visibility conditions, they said.
After a relatively clear day yesterday, fog descended on the national capital shortly before midnight. It enveloped the airport area at 10 pm last night, forcing airport authorities to implement low visibility procedures.
Some of the international flights, which generally operate during the night from here, also got delayed due to the fog. Three international flights were diverted to Mumbai.
About 13 flights, mostly of Air India and Indigo, took off for their destinations in CAT-IIIB conditions.
The fog situation began to improve at around 10 am, when the runway visibility range increased to 700 metres for main runway (28/10), while it remained 400 metres for the new runway.