Airlines reschedule to skirt Delhi fog

Prominent international airlines are changing their schedules in an attempt to prevent the disruption of flights due to foggy weather in Delhi.

While most airlines bound for Europe and the US are shifting their flight timings to the afternoon, Air-India has relocated all its Delhi-London-New York flights to Mumbai.

The national flag carrier is operating a special Boeing 747-400 to take its Delhi-London-New York sector passengers to Mumbai 12 hours before the scheduled departure of the flights.

All the five flights on this sector will depart from Mumbai in the December 24-February 4 period. The special shuttle will depart from Delhi to Mumbai at 6 pm.

Return flights from London will also terminate in Mumbai and passengers will be flown to Delhi at 11 am the next morning.

Air-India will foot the hotel bills. The hourly cost of flying a B-747-400 works out to around Rs 5 lakh, airline sources said.

An Air-India spokesperson said the airline's fog-related expenses touch Rs 10 crore annually. Declining to comment on how much extra would be spent this year, the spokesperson said the airline was ready to bear the excess expenditure to ensure that passengers were not inconvenienced.

Air-India has also rescheduled its three flights to Frankfurt from Delhi. Instead of 6 am they will now depart at 11 am.

British Airways has re-scheduled its Delhi flights to 12:30 pm from 3:25 am, while the Kolkata flights have been changed to 4 am from 8 am, with effect from December 15. Virgin Atlantic, on the other hand, has not changed its flight schedule as both its flights depart at 2 pm.

Industry sources said the two European majors Lufthansa and Air France have not made changes in their schedules either.

However, the German carrier might effect changes if the need arises, sources said. Air Canada is also not changing its schedule as the Toronto curfew rules demand that an airline cannot land before 5:30 am.