Wings clipped: Fog rains woes in air

Wings clipped: Fog rains woes in air
By C S Hemanth,DH News Service,Bangalore:
Flights have been diverted to Chennai which is the nearest airport as most of the planes cannot be hovering the city because the fuel can keep the aircraft up for only 20 or 25 minutes,

With the weatherman indicating that temperatures might dip further, the blanket of fog will continue to be a source of nightmare for air passengers travelling in and out of Bangalore.

Ever since thick winter fog formed over the city a couple of weeks ago, every day the HAL Airport has been witnessing around four or five flight delays.

The delays which are mostly confined to inbound and outbound flights in the early mornings and nights have thrown passengers as well as flight schedules out of gear.

The wait starts at the departure terminal where they are greeted with long queues at the check-in areas and then in the security check areas before they get to board their flights.

“Normally it takes 20 minutes for passengers to go through all the formalities which include collecting the boarding pass and security check; but now due to the fog delays this process takes about 45 minutes to one hour,” a senior Airport Authority of India (AAI) official told Deccan Herald.

To add to the woes, they have to report at the airport and get their baggage checked one hour before departure for domestic flights and three hours for international flights. The entire process to board a flight takes close to two hours for domestic flights.

AAI officials said that most of the fog delays were for 15-20 minutes and this was making flight schedules go haywire.

“On numerous occasions flights have been diverted to Chennai which is the nearest airport as most of the planes cannot be hovering the city because the fuel can keep the aircraft up for only 20 or 25 minutes,” said officials.
The HAL Airport with over 305 takeoffs and landings has witnessed a steady increase in air traffic since last year when inbound and outbound flights numbered 275 flights.