Airlines, airport brace for the fog

Series of measures proposed to tackle crisis

The Delhi Airport authorities and airlines are getting ready with a series of measures to deal with the fog season which causes flight delays every year.

According to the Meteorological Department, the airport will see fog from mid-December to February. Fliers will be worst affected in January, the peak fog season.

The airport authorities have decided to set up additional help desks and put more customer care executives on duty to help out passengers during the fog season. Traffic marshals will be deployed to clear roads leading up to terminals, which get clogged with traffic due to poor visibility. According to airport sources, parking boys will be deployed to deal with fog at the airside.

Air India, which has the largest number of pilots trained to fly in low visibility conditions, is preparing for the fog season. IndiGo spokesperson said the airlines pilots have been adequately trained to fly in the fog season. Besides, all the airlines aircraft are CAT III compliant.

Sources said with two weeks to go before fog actually hits the airport, several other steps will be taken by the authorities.

In the first week of this month, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) directed all stakeholders — the Airports Authority of India, scheduled domestic and foreign airlines, Delhi International Airport Limited, the Meteorological Department and the Central Industrial Security Force — to prepare a coordinated strategy to deal with the menace of fog.

The DGCA also asked the airlines to ensure that passengers are provided basic amenities along with provision of food at alternative airports in case flights get diverted. Besides, they have also been directed to depute a senior officer at the international airport during the fog period for passenger facilitation.

The airports and airlines will have to ensure that meteorological information for passengers is displayed on the flight information display system, which should also be updated every 15 minutes. Weather information at Delhi airport should also be displayed on prominent news channels.