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Delhi gets foggy, delays cloud Mumbai

Domestic airlines rescheduled their flights to New Delhi as the season’s first foggy morning paralysed the capital’s airport on Tuesday.

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NEW DELHI: Civil aviation authorities have directed domestic airlines to reschedule their flights to New Delhi as the season’s first foggy morning paralysed the capital’s airport on Tuesday.

At Mumbai airport, passengers had to endure delays of up to three hours. Low visibility procedure (LVP) was enforced by the Delhi airport authorities at 6:18am, and only one runway was operational as visibility levels dropped below 100 metres. The situation improved when the fog lifted by about 10am.

Bad weather delayed 50 flights — some by 20 minutes, others by up to two hours. Three flights were cancelled and six diverted during the four-hour enforcement of LVP. The cancelled flights included SpiceJet 603 to Varanasi, Air Deccan 513 to Amritsar, and Air Deccan 537 to Jammu and Chandigarh.

GMR-DIAL, the public-private partnership that took over Delhi airport six months ago, has set up temporary cabins outside terminal 1B for additional passenger seating. It also established day-night food and beverage counters for stranded passengers.

Meanwhile, passengers leaving Mumbai may have to brace for more disruption. “There were major delays at Mumbai airport as flights of all airlines were delayed,” the official spokesperson of Mumbai International Airport Limited said. “Though the fog in Delhi cleared after 10am, it caused delays throughout the day.”

Neena Rajah (name changed), an Air Sahara passenger, had to wait for two hours for her Mumbai-Delhi flight. “I had a harrowing time figuring out when the flight would take off,” she said.

Rajah was due to host her daughter’s second birthday party but had to cancel the event.

Air Sahara was just one of the airlines to suffer significant delays. “Eight flights were cancelled from Delhi airport between 7am and 2pm,” said an Air Sahara spokesperson.

Five of Indian’s Mumbai-Delhi flights were delayed by three hours. “We have 11 or 12 flights in the Mumbai-Delhi sector, of which four or five were delayed,” said a spokesman. “But due to our contingency plan, which includes 400 pilots trained to operate in low visibility, we were able to manage the situation.”

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