• by Neeta Lal (new delhi)
• Friday, January 08, 2010
• Inter Press Service

If one were a night passenger on any airline flying out of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in the past week, chances are he would have spent many a nail-biting moment waiting endlessly to board his aircraft.

Thick fog — formed when the ground cools rapidly resulting in condensation, caused primarily by temperatures plummeting to record new lows — has been playing havoc with flight schedules at IGI Airport since the end of December last year.

In the first three days of the New Year, chaos reigned at IGI airport as over 70 domestic flights were delayed by several hours, six cancelled and 17 international services diverted to other cities. No flight could take off or land for eight hours on Jan. 2 as runway visibility fell to 100 metres and general visibility to less than 50 m (optimal is 600 m).

Chennai-bound Ameeta Bakshi spent six hours at IGI with her two-year-old twins. 'I was in Delhi for a family reunion but decided to leave early as my kids aren't well. But the long wait at the airport made them miserable. They developed raging fever and were cranky throughout the flight. It's been the worst new year for me!' she recounts.

Suresh Sarkar, who was heading for India's eastern city of Kolkata and whose flight had been cancelled on Jan. 2, says, 'I always budget a day extra for flying back from Delhi around New Year's due to the weather. Last year, too, my flight got cancelled because of fog. I’m used to this fog!'

A glitch in cables connected to the Instrument Landing System (ILS), which measures and provides real-time runway visibility data to the Air Traffic Control tower, compounded matters further. This forced airport officials to shut operations for hours, throwing air schedules off kilter.

Last year over 200 flights got cancelled while about 1,000 were delayed at IGI airport for hours due to heavy fog, which threw flight operations into a tailspin from mid-December onwards.

Air passengers flying out of New Delhi suffer each winter due to inclement weather, surely not a matter of pride for a country feted as an 'emerging superpower'. The IGI has invested millions in upgrading its infrastructure and shelled out a whopping 100 crore rupees (21.877 million dollars) to install the latest ILS alone at the main and new runways for flights to operate glitch- free.

Collectively, airlines, too, have trained 1,323 pilots to use CAT-111 (the most sophisticated ILS that enables aircraft to land in very foggy conditions) at a cumulative cost of 200 crore rupees (43.75 million dollars). Of the 289 aircraft being used for domestic flights, 206 have also been made ILS- compliant.

According to Ankur Bhatia, managing director of Bird Air Group, India’s largest aviation consortium, multifarious factors are responsible for fog- related pandemonium at IGI each year. In an interview with IPS, Bhatia says a combination of good infrastructure, CAT-111 certified pilots and CAT 111- compliant planes is required for the smooth functioning of airlines during heavy fog.

'In India, the ILS technology is still new,' elaborates Bhatia, 'so we’re struggling with teething troubles. Also, India has lesser days of fog, concentrated around New Year unlike western countries where fog lasts much longer. So the Indian system has less experience in operating ILS. Consequently, our infrastructure is also not of the level of the West for which it makes more sense to make heavier investments in ILS-compliant gear.'

In the past, only a few airlines had CAT-III trained pilots and planes to operate in India under poor visibility conditions. Now many pilots and aircraft are CAT-III certified. And considering every winter, fog-induced delays at airports cause great distress to passengers, not to mention loss of millions of dollars in revenue, arrangements are expected to be in place for all eventualities.

'Airports should carry out mandatory fog drills before winter to check the functioning of all systems and have in place emergency services that can be pressed into action at short notice,' says a senior commander of an international airline, who declined to be named.

'A diverted flight can mean an extra expense of 10 lakh rupees (22,500 U.S. dollars). The hourly cost of flying an Airbus A-320 is about 3.5 lakh rupees (7,875 dollars) and it can take up to three to four days for airline schedules to be streamlined again after a day of fog and subsequent diversions.'

Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International and the IGI airports have the dubious distinction of grabbing the first and second slots in terms of late arrivals in the world's most-delayed airports list compiled by the U.S. magazine ‘Forbes’ last year.

'India takes the prize as the country with most frequent late arrivals in our second annual tallying of the world's most-delayed airports,' ‘Forbes’ said in its report.

At New Delhi's IGI airport, the percentage of on-time arrivals was 50.89 percent in 2008, based on data from FlightStats, which tracks historical and real-time flight information, Forbes said.

Topping the list of the world's most-delayed airport for the second year in a row, Mumbai's international airport saw just 49.95 percent of on-time arrivals while about 58 percent of its late arrivals in 2008 registered delays of 30 minutes or more, the report added.

Delayed landings and take-offs at most Indian airports have become almost de rigueur these days. On an average, each aircraft circles in air for nearly 50 minutes. According to industry estimates, one minute of circling in air costs 2,500 rupees (54.66 dollars) per aircraft and 1,200 rupees (26.23 dollars) for ATRs (50- to 70-seater turboprops). Engine burn leads to additional maintenance costs of about 400 dollars per hour. On top of that, aircraft utilisation—from an average usage of about 11 hours a day — dips by less than half during the foggy days.

Moreover, delays triggered by bad weather further force airlines to press their contingency measures into service — toll-free helplines, tie-ups with food outlets for the supply of snacks and, in some cases, arrangements with star- rated hotels for stranded passenger stay in case of cancellations.

But many aviation experts insist that congestion or traffic movement is more about airport efficiency rather than about a weak infrastructure. Indian airports need better synergy and coordinated effort between multiple parties to ensure smooth functioning, they say.

'Considering that every winter fog-induced delays at airports cause great inconvenience to passengers, not to mention loss of millions of dollars in revenue, arrangements ought to be in place to cater to their needs and keep them informed,' says Dr. Kartik Abrol, a businessman whose flight from New Delhi to Singapore was delayed by over nine hours on Jan. 2.

Insiders point out that things are definitely on an improvement trajectory as far as Indian airports are concerned. According to an official of the ministry of civil aviation, who requested anonymity, things look messy because there has been a huge jump in the number of air travelers and the aviation sector in India has witnessed exponential growth. The number of passengers has tripled, so infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.

'In London,' adds the official, 'no one grills the government and the airlines on fog delays. It’s natural, it’s expected and airlines handle it their way and passengers travel the way they want. Nobody makes a fuss. But in India, things get magnified to huge proportions.'

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service