80 flights delayed due to bad weather

B D Narayankar

New Delhi: As many as 80 flights were delayed due to heavy fog at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Thursday.

Airport authorities were caught unawares as fog suddenly enveloped the airport after a clear morning. More than 40 flights departing from here were delayed by over two hours while four SpiceJet flights from Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad scheduled to arrive here at 7.45 am were diverted to Jaipur. Most flights arriving in New Delhi were delayed by over two hours.

The fog reduced the runway visibility to less than 50 metres.

Early morning flights went as per schedule as the visibility was above 1,500 metres and general visibility was 100 metres at around 6.30 am.

All flights which were scheduled to take off after 7.30 am were badly affected, as passengers had boarded and doors were closed when the fog descended.

A huge backlog of flights has aggravated the situation as no flights were taking off. Fog has delayed several flights this month. Flights were affected on Wednesday and over 50 flights were delayed on January 26. Since December 29 last year, over 1,000 flights have been delayed and around 150 cancelled.