DGCA plans cell to tide over fog hit flight schedules

New Delhi: Perturbed over cancellation of a large number of flights in north India and resultant problems faced by passengers, aviation regulator DGCA today decided to set up a cell comprising its own officials and those of all Indian carriers.[caption id=“attachment_1327551” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Delhi fog. AFP[/caption] The decision was taken at a meeting the new DGCA chief and civil aviation ministry joint secretary Prabhat Kumar had with representatives of airlines, Airports Authority of India, Delhi’s IGI Airport, the met department and CISF. A total of 247 flights have been cancelled due to fog since 17 December last year, including 119 flights on a single day late last week. The cell would daily monitor the fog situation and take quick decisions to help airlines mount flights to clear the backlog of stranded passengers, official sources said. The meeting also reviewed the deployment of pilots, trained to operate the Instrument Landing System under Category III when the runway visibility range (RVR) of around 75 metres. Under CAT-II and CAT-I conditions, the RVR is around 150-200 metres and 550 metres respectively. The airlines have already been instructed to deploy adequate number of CAT-III trained pilots to operate flights to and from Delhi during fog. They have also been asked to reschedule flights of non-CAT-III compliant aircraft like turboprop ATRs, Q-400, Canadian Regional Jets in this period. The meeting took stock of the facilities airlines were providing to passengers to minimise their inconvenience, including advance information about delays or cancellations and provision of food and beverages at such times. On improvement of fog situation, the Air Traffic Control was also instructed to give priority to diverted flights. ATC should sequence the aircraft and give clearance for take-off based on the start-up request to avoid congestion. Meteorological information for passengers should be shown on Flight Information Display systems at the airport and it should be updated regularly, the sources said. A day after an Air India aircraft landed in Jaipur and had a tyre burst disrupting several flights, it was also decided to augment ground infrastructure at the identified alternate airports during fog, the sources added. PTI