550 flights delayed, 10 scrappedas fog reduces visibility to 50m

New Delhi: Delhiites woke up to a thick blanket of fog on Tuesday, with visibility plunging to just 50 metres for an hour in the morning. As a result, 550 flights were delayed and 10 cancelled.The visibility was below 200m from 5.30 am to 9.30 am. In between, it dipped to 50m for an hour from 7.30 am, said R K Jenamani, senior scientist, India Meteorological Department (IMD). The visibility improved once the sun came out.
Shallow to moderate fog is likely to persist on Wednesday and Thursday, while a yellow alert has been issued for Friday, warning of dense fog at isolated locations, the Met department said. Tuesday's maximum temperature was recorded at 23.2 degrees Celsius, two and a half notches above normal, and 1.4 degrees higher than Monday's maximum. The minimum settled at 8.8°C, just over one degree above normal. The maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to be around 18 to 20°C and 8 to 10°C, respectively, on Wednesday. Strong surface winds blowing at 10-15 kmph are expected during the day.Due to the low visibility at IGIA and other airports across north India, flight operations were impacted. FlightRadar24, a live tracking website, said the average delay in the 500 flights was 34 minutes. Out of the 10 flights that were cancelled, six were to land and four depart from Delhi. Nirbhay Singh, a passenger, was scheduled to travel to Ranchi on a flight that was scheduled to depart at 6.45 am from IGIA's Terminal 1. It finally took off after six-and-a-half hours."On Monday, I received a message that the flight was delayed to 7.15 am due to bad weather. At 12.25 am on Tuesday, I received another message that it would depart on time. Based on this information, I left home at 4 am. Upon arrival, the departure time was again revised — first to 8.45 am, then to 9.40 am and finally to 10.15 am," he said. The problems continued even after boarding began. "After all the flyers were seated, the aircraft moved for a few minutes and then stopped for 10 to 15 minutes. The cabin crew informed us that there were technical issues but could not provide any estimated departure time. They distributed food during this period. Eventually, the captain announced that the aircraft was ready for departure, but it was again delayed while waiting for ATC clearance. We remained seated in the plane from 10.15 am till 1.20 pm," said Singh, adding that the flight reached Ranchi around 2.33 pm.

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