Indecision over delayed flights caused IGI chaos?

NEW DELHI: Friday’s chaos at the Delhi airport, when hundreds of flights were held up due to dense fog, was due to airlines failing to decide the sequence in which the flights should depart after visibility improved, air traffic officials said. They said the airlines did not prioritise which flight will go first after visibility improved, leading to confusion, with every pilot calling the Air Traffic Control (ATC) for permission to take off.

At least 600 flights were hit at the Indira Gandhi International Airport Friday morning after the year’s worst spell of fog yet as well as restrictions for Republic Day rehearsals forced flight operations to be suspended during peak hours, leading to a cascading impact on schedules, which lasted at least 7-8 hours.

Officials said Saturday lack of coordination worsened delays and forced many passengers to wait inside aircraft.

Normally, the process to clear backlog involves airlines communicating to airport authorities which of their flights must be sequenced first. “For instance, if five different airlines had 10 flights each to depart and there were only four slots, they were unable to tell us which four will go first. Passengers of all 10 flights were asked to board instead,” an (ATC) official, not authorised to speak to the media, said.

While most airlines have systems and pilots for handling low visibility conditions, using the CAT3B technology, landings and take-offs are suspended when visibility drops below 75 metre. “The visibility between 5:30am and 9:30am was below 75 metre but once it improved, we didn’t receive any sequence and every pilot was calling us, requesting to depart. By the time things were sorted, restrictions for R-day began. The airlines should prepare a list of flights they want to depart first, in advance,” a second ATC official said. Restrictions for R-day rehearsals were in place from 10:35am to 12:15pm.

According to a Vistara spokesperson, almost all of their cap- tains and a majority of first officers are qualified to operate in CAT-IIIB conditions. “100% of our morning departures and arrivals are planned with LVTO and CAT3B crew capability, and we extend this to night operations too. We witnessed major disruptions on January 3 and 18, primarily because weather deterioration, and airspace closure for R-day. However, none of our flights were diverted and very few were cancelled,” the spokesperson added.

A Jet Airways spokesperson said, “Nearly three-quarters of all Jet Airways pilots are trained to operate under various CAT conditions, especially CAT two and three. The airline has a centralised operations centre, where dedicated planning teams track and study network-wide weather forecasts. Their intelligence is integrated into daily operations of the airline.”

Air Asia India spokesperson said, “Timely updates on the schedule are sent to guests in regard to fog related delays. Anticipatory delay messages are sent to guests followed by actual revised departure timings.”

A Goair spokesperson said the air carrier creates a roster keeping fog conditions in mind. “So, all our pilots operating in those sectors are CAT III compliant. We do time to time announcements through SMS and social media channels,” the spokesperson said. Indigo and Spicejet did not respond to email queries .

An official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country’s civil aviation regulator, said it might step in to review procedures. “We had a meeting with airlines, airport operators and ATC before fog season but confusion seems to persist. We will review the situation again,” the official said.

Experts said all the three stakeholders need to coordinate better. “Airlines ask passengers to board so that they can blame the ATC for delay. Airlines do not prioritise flights and the ATC should decide and let airlines know,” Mark Martin, CEO of a Dubai-based aviation consulting firm, who was stuck in an aircraft for two hours, said.