22 flights cancelled due to fog in Delhi

Flyers were stranded for hours at the Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport after runway visibility nosedived below 100 meters due to dense fog on Friday morning.

Twenty-two flights were cancelled and nearly 350 fights were delayed since heavy fog descended on the airport around 4.15 am.

Many passengers had to stay seated onboard for two hour or more before their flights could take off.

Rajesh Swahney, a flyer, tweeted around 1.30 pm: “3 hours at the Delhi airport, and IndiGo6E tells me it will be another 3 hours in the plane. Damn Fog, utter confusion & chaos all around,” .

After the visibility improved, the delayed flights departed as per sequence.
Several passengers decided to de-board their flights following prolonged delays.

They, however, faced harrowing time waiting to get their baggage back.

“When I said, ‘I am de-boarding’, the flight attendant told me for that ‘you will have to first discontinue your flight’,” Ritika Kaushik, another flyer, said. 

Due to fog, Air India had to cancel three domestic flights. Another 10, both domestic and international, flights bound for the Capital were diverted due to low visibility at the airport.

Two hundred twelve departure delays while 136 arrival delays were reported during the day, according to the IGI authorities.

Flight services were restored after runway visibility soared over 100 meters around 11.30 am. And as the day progressed, runway visibility improved further.

Fog also disrupted the train traffic.

Twenty-four trains were cancelled while 19 were reportedly running late.

Road traffic in the Capital, however, remained largely unaffected as vehicular movement on the roads was reported to be smooth.

As per the Delhi Traffic Police Helpline, only the Naraina flyover to Dhaula Kuan stretch saw slow traffic movement.