Heavy fog in the Capital today played havoc with the schedules of both domestic and international airlines, with most morning flights being delayed by 4-5 hours.
Operations came to a halt between 12:05-10:42 am today, and four flights had to be diverted to Mumbai due to low visibility.
However, sources in the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said there was no plan to close the Indira Gandhi International Airport for the time being.
Any decision on the closure will depend on the reports of the meteorogical department, which are sent to the AAI every two hours.
They added that around 7:45 pm, the department had said there should be no significant deterioration in conditions at least for two hours.
Only foreign airlines could land during the low visibility period using the Category III A (CatIIIA) instrument landing system (ILS).
The aircraft that landed during the low visibility period belonged to Emirates Airlines, Royal Jordanian, and Gulf Air, with the Emirates flight landing at 10:42 am, when visibility was only 325 metres. None of the domestic airlines, except Indian Airlines, has ILS CatIIIA-trained pilots.
Due to dense fog, the authorities at the Delhi airport had to implement the low visibility procedure at 11:43 pm on January 1. The runway visibility range was 300 metres at that time.
The conditions further deteriorated, with the visibility range reducing to 150 metres at 9 am today. The low visibility procedure at the airport was called off at 1 pm.
The flights that were diverted to Mumbai include British Airways, Lufthansa, Air-India and Alliance Air.
Indian Airlines canceled a morning flight to Chandigarh, while its first flight from Nagpur scheduled at 5:50 am landed at 11 am.
Indian Airlines has also combined some of its evening flights, including two Chennai flights, a Bangalore-Chennai flight, and a Jammu-Srinagar flight.
Jet Airways
