Passengers fret as fog hits flights

Several flights departed late while there was at least one case of a flight being diverted to another airport.With weather conditions not amenable for flights to take off or land during the wee hours, both domestic and international flights landed later than the scheduled time.

According to flight monitoring website flightstats.com, between 6 am and 12 noon, 42 flights arrived more than 45 minutes late, while another 79 flights departed 45 minutes late.

A British Airways flight from Heathrow, scheduled to land at 4:30 am, had to be diverted to Chennai as there was no visibility. After refuelling in Chennai, the flight finally landed in Bangalore at 10 am.

Shilpa Kaluti, who was travelling with her one-year-old daughter Nikita, said that the delay was frustrating, considering that she had travelled from the Heathrow Airport in London, which had been shut down for the past couple of days.

Several domestic flights also faced delay due to poor visibility on the runway. A flight from Trivandrum that was supposed to arrive at 10 am, landed only at 12 noon, while a flight from Pune was delayed by three hours.  Indian Airlines, Kingfisher, Jet Airways and Spice Jet flights were affected by the delay.

On the departure side, flights to Coimbatore, Chennai, and Bhubaneshwar were delayed.
Elsewhere in the state

Meanwhile, Nandi Hills in Chikkaballapur district did a ‘vanishing act,’ with fog covering the hill range entirely. Only a close look revealed that the hill range was ‘hiding’ under a thick blanket of fog.

In Hubli, early morning mist forced around 30 percent of the joggers and walkers indoors. There was thick fog in the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad upto 8 am, with poor visibility affecting vehicle riders the most.

In Mysore though, morning joggers went about their daily morning routine of physical exercises without any hitch.

But others preferred staying home upto around 7 am, due to the fog and cold weather.
In the coastal city of Mangalore, it was business as usual with the early morning weather being ‘normal’. 

Stranded

I have been waiting in the airport for the past three hours to pick up my uncle. Officials have not told me why the flights have been delayed, but I presume it is due to fog.
Rangesh M R

Our flight from London was supposed to land in Bangalore at 4:30 am, but when the plane approached the airport, the pilot was told to hover until visibility became clearer. Eventually, the pilot decided to go to Chennai, refuel and we reached Bangalore at 10 am. In the end, we were late by six hours.
Shilpa Kaluti

While leaving Dubai, our pilot informed us that they had received instructions from Bangalore to delay departure so as to avoid the fog. Eventually, we landed almost an hour-and-a-half late.
Ashi Sayed

The fog in Bangalore was just the culmination of a really bad trip from Netherlands. With weather conditions being bad in Europe, our flight was delayed by several hours. Then, in Dubai, our flight was asked to depart later than its usual time due to the fog.
Sandeep Kumar Shetty

I was a delegate at the World Youth Festival at Johannesburg, and was returning via Mumbai. Our aircraft was supposed to depart from Mumbai at 7 am, but we finally departed at 8:30 am.
Nagaraj P

BIAL cautions  travellers
BIAL has asked passengers to be prepared for unavoidable delays. In a message on its website, BIAL has asked passengers to carry essential medicines and items like baby food in hand baggage. Those receiving passengers can call 66782255/66782251 or the respective airline call centres.