Tuesday marked the third day that thick fog covered the Indian sky, interfering with aviation travel and necessitating government intervention.

Six metro airports were instructed by the civil aviation ministry to establish war rooms and submit incident reports three times a day. The order was sent to airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai in response to flight delays, cancellations, and diversions that caused travel plans to fall apart and people to lose their cool.

“We have asked all six metro airports to submit incident reports thrice daily. Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia stated, “The implementation of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s directives, standard operating procedures, and civil aviation requirements will be monitored and reported regularly.”

The minister stated that to promptly handle complaints about passenger annoyance, the six airports and the airlines operating there needed to set up war rooms. He continued, “Ample manpower for the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will be available around the clock.”

The government’s move on Tuesday came after several people dined on the tarmac near an aircraft at the Mumbai airport on Sunday, while a passenger in Delhi on Sunday attacked a pilot after a 13-hour delay. After attacking the IndiGo pilot, the passenger was taken into custody and released on bond, and the airline proceeded to place him on a no-fly list.

In a related development, after a video of passengers dining on the tarmac went viral, the civil aviation ministry sent a show-cause notice to IndiGo and the Mumbai airport. The notification mentioned noncompliance with security protocols as a violation of Rule 51 of the Aircraft (Security) Rules, 2023.

According to an official aware of the occurrence, “Neither IndiGo nor the Mumbai International Airport were proactive in anticipating the situation and in making appropriate facilitation arrangements for passengers at the airport.” “The government has requested responses to both notices by January 16th. Enforcement action, including a financial penalty, will be started if responses are not received within the allotted period, the official stated. IndiGo stated that in addition to responding to the notice, it has started an internal investigation.

From 6.50 p.m. on Sunday until 8.30 a.m. on Monday, there was a more than 12-hour delay on an Air India flight from Kozhikode to Mumbai.

It was a bad dream. We were first informed that the flight had been rescheduled for 9.55 p.m. and then for roughly 10.30 p.m. The personnel informed us that it will now depart tomorrow at 7.35 am after we asked several times. To make matters worse, we were told to leave the airport property without being given any assurances regarding our overnight accommodations after being forced to wait at the airport since 4 p.m. Anshika Verma, a passenger, told PTI, “We really had to put our foot down to get the accommodation, and even then it was not provided to all.”

Many took their anger out on X. Images of lengthy lines at airports, where people were lying down or sitting, awaiting word on the status of their flights, surfaced on social media.

With 1,400–1,500 daily flights, Delhi Airport is the busiest and largest airport in India. On Tuesday, it completely operationalized its 29L runway for CAT III flight operations. In the world of aviation, an automated system that makes landings in extremely poor visibility situations easier is referred to as Category III or CAT III.

A runway has two possible approaches, but as of right now, only one end of the 29L runway is CAT III-compliant, meaning that aircraft can land with a runway visual range of less than 200 meters but not fewer than 50 meters. On Tuesday, this runway was made fully CAT III-compliant. The airport’s main CAT III-compliant runway 28/10 is yet to return to service.

“Operationalization of RWY 28/10 as CAT III at Delhi Airport after re-carpeting will also be undertaken,” Scindia said.

On Tuesday, the government’s weather office warned that fog may affect some airports, highways, and railway routes in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, north Rajasthan and north Madhya Pradesh.

Broadly, fog-induced disruptions eased on Tuesday, and the Delhi airport reported no flight diversions. Nevertheless, the airport was still experiencing delays for about 100–120 aircraft. An airplane completes about four flights a day on average. As a result, each delay has a cascading effect that affects departures and arrivals for various locations throughout the day.

“Deep fog in North India over the past three days has disrupted operations, including at our major Delhi hub. This has led to certain diversions and desynchronization of aircraft and staff rotations, which Air India regrets. The airline, which is controlled by the Tata group, released a statement saying, “We are working hard to restore schedules and sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers.”

According to the most recent data, punctuality was appalling as of January 15. The on-time performance of the following airlines was reported: Vistara, 54.3%, vs 29.6%; IndiGo, 22.1% (versus 21% on January 14), Air India, 18.6% (versus 46.8%), SpiceJet, 42.7% (versus 51.8%), AIX Connect, 31.3% (versus 30.2%), and Akasa Air, 66.2% (versus 41.8%).

SOURCE: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/aviation-minister-jyotiraditya-scindia-refines-sops-amid-airport-chaos-war-rooms-to-be-set-up-11705399553482.html