Flight services hit at Kolkata due to fog

Flight services from Kolkata were disrupted for the second consecutive day on Sunday due to heavy fog at the airport. No flight could take off from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport for more than three hours in the morning, leading to a delay in the departure of 17 domestic flights, said an official. “The runway visibility dipped to 50 m, making it impossible for flights to take off,” explained the official. The schedule limped back to normal in the afternoon. Airport officials fear that the fog might disrupt flights again over the next couple of days. The first flight to take off in the morning was the Jet Airways flight to Port Blair at 8.25 am, said another official. The Indian flight to Port Blair left at 9.15 am, more than three-and-a-half hours behind schedule. The airline’s Kolkata-Delhi flight left at 9.35 am, instead of 7 am, according to the official.

Flights of Air Sahara, Air Deccan, SpiceJet, Kingfisher and other airlines were also delayed by hours. According to the airport meteorological department, the fog started forming around midnight and intensified at dawn. The runway visibility dropped to 50 m around 7.30 am. The fog started lifting after that and around 8 am, visibility was back to normal. “As the temperature dips, the moisture in the air condenses into water droplets which, in turn, leads to fog formation,” explained a Met official. “The current atmospheric condition is likely to prevail till the first week of February,” said A.K. Das, Met director of Kolkata airport. The fog is generally at its densest from 3 am to 9 am, till the end of January, he added. The Category II Instrumental Landing System, installed at the airport in December, is yet to be made operational. “The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is working on it,” explained an official.

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