Dense fog continue to wreak havocon the operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airporthere for the third consecutive day and led to delay of over100 flights, diversion of seven and cancellation of 10 others.
Schedules of over 100 flights were badly affected afterdense fog enveloped the airport late last night and early thismorning.
The flights were delayed from half an hour to five hoursand some of them had to be cancelled, causing inconvenience tothe passengers, airport officials said.
Fog started to descend at the airport around 10 PMyesterday but the runway visibility was fine and flightoperations were normal.
But the situation started to deteriorate around 11.21 PMwhen visibility dropped to 50 metres on the third runway(29/11). However, the visibility was around 800 metres on themain runway (28/10) and, therefore, flight operations went onunhindered on it, they said.
Fog became more dense around 12.30 AM, when thevisibility on the main runway also dropped to 50 metres whilethat on the third runway was below 50 metres, which broughtthe flight operations to a standstill.
A total of seven (six domestic and one international)flights were diverted to nearby airports like Jaipur,Ahmedabad and others, the officials said.
The visibility started to increase after 1.30 AM on themain runway and flights began taking off as and when theconditions were right, they said, adding the flights arrivinghere were using instrument landing system (ILS).
The visibility at one end of the third runway remainedzero till almost 5.30 AM.
A total of 138 domestic and international flights arrivedassisted by various category of ILS. 69 flights with CAT-I(when visibility is upto 550 m), 19 flights with CAT-II (whenvisibility was between 550 and 300 me), 30 flights withCAT-IIIA (when visibility was between 300 and 200 m) and 20flights with CAT-IIIB (visibility between 200 and 50 m), anairport official said.
Yesterday around 140 flights were affected due to densefog.
MeT department has predicted that the runway visibilityis likely reduce to 500 metres in shallow fog by 11.30 PM andit may further reduce to below 200 metres in dense fog from3.30 AM tomorrow.