Fog affects schedule of 25 flights at Delhi airport

Operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi were partially hit due to fog on Tuesday affecting the schedule of 25 domestic and international flights.

Twenty-five flights, originating from Delhi, were delayed either due to weather conditions at the airport and at the destination or due to operational reasons.

One flight was cancelled on Tuesday, airport sources said, adding that there were no flight diversions unlike Monday.

On Monday, dense fog had thrown the schedule of around 160 flights out of gear after the airport remained shut for about one-and-a-half hours due to poor visibility and subsequent backlog of departing flights.

Fog started to descend over the airport late Monday night, forcing authorities to implement low visibility procedures on the airport's two operational runways -- main (28/10) and third (29/11).

The visibility on the third runway remained low through the night and in the morning but it was available for flight operations.

The runway visibility on third runway dropped to 50 metres between 1 am and 4 am, but it was open for operations for flight landing with the assistance of CAT-IIIB instrument landing system, which permits a CAT-IIIB compliant plane to land when the visibility is up to 50 metres.

The visibility on the main runway was around 1,000 metres and operations were smooth on it, they said.

Between 12 midnight and 7 am on Tuesday, a total of 40 flights operated with the assistance of instrument landing system.

The airport witnessed its worst fog of this season on Monday, badly affecting the schedule of domestic and international flights.