Foggy Thinking

IF you were a night passenger on any airline, flying out of Delhi in the last six to seven weeks, chances were that instead of flying out, you would spend a few anxious and tiresome hours at the airport and then check into a hotel. Thanks to an unprecedented fog enveloping the capital this winter and the absence of an upgraded Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the airport, almost all incoming flights got diverted, outgoing flights delayed by up to 24 hours and airline schedules turned upside down. Worse, airlines lost millions of dollars.

Says Rayna Sequeira, South Asia spokesperson for British Airways: In a period of one month ending January 17, we had 28 flight delays, an average of 16 hours on each disruption and four flights got diverted. In monetary terms it cost us in excess of £ 1 million. Adds Air Canada general manager Geoffrey Beckett: In a five-week period just two of our flights went on time. It's been very bad. We have been putting in extra aircrafts on the route. At a rough estimate, each minute of delay costs US $200.

The dense fog meant the airlines had to pay more in terms of hotel nights for stranded passengers and parking fees to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and for factoring in additional aircrafts and crews. Indian Airlines (IA) was particularly affected with only 14 aircraft in its fleet based in Delhi. Over a particularly bad stretch of four days in December, IA had to cancel 44 flights and delay some by over 10 hours.

Poor visibility forced Lufthansa to reschedule its night departures to a more feasible noon. Says Harald Hahn, general manager, South Asia: When we reschedule, we've to keep in mind that our passengers can make connecting flights. But rescheduling is not an option easily available to all, because of tight slots at European airports.

Airport metereological director S.C. Gupta says the fog experienced last winter was pretty bad too. But then, it was dry and not so persistent. This year there has been 100 per cent moisture at low levels with no wind conditions. As a result, the moisture has been stagnant. The pollution hasn't helped either, he says.

But the weather wasn't the only villain 50 per cent of the disruptions happened because of the absence of a modern ILS. The Delhi airport uses the ILS1, which doesnt have a fog and bad weather backup system. The outer marker of the ILS which is installed near the Indian Institute of Technology campus wasn't working most of the time. Says a senior air traffic controller: Even the system which tells us whether the outer marker is functional wasn't working.

Category 2 ILS allows the pilot a visual range of just 400 metres and a decision height of 100 feet, while the ILS1 gives him a high visual range of 800 metres. Early last year, the AAI had asked the ministry of civil aviation to upgrade to ILS2 or ILS3. The new system would have cost between Rs 8 crore and Rs 9 crore. But both the civil aviation and finance ministries scuttled the request on the ground that the fog was only a 10-15 day phenomenon and did not warrant such a big investment.

Wiser with experience, the airport authorities are now installing the ILS2 with an advanced visual range of 350 metres. Says Jaganath, regional executive director of AAI: We have the equipment installed and the calibration tests will be on from February 8 onwards. The tests involve checking the centre line and glide angles which the ILS beams out. While the equipment being installed is being claimed to be suitable for ILS3 also civil aviation minister Ananth Kumar says even this will be installed by November the fact remains that our pilots havent still been trained even for ILS2.

Says a senior AAI officer: IA's Boeing 737s don't have airborne Category 2 systems. Privately, IA managers will tell you that it would be more expensive for them to install ILS systems, train their pilots on it, and keep their licences current than to bear the expenses of fog delays. Delhi is the only airport in which it is a problem.

The sooner the government sorts out such problems the better. As Air Canada's Beckett says, If the fog becomes an annual feature, it will certainly make us rethink Delhi as a destination during the affected period. Ten months on, if flight disruptions recur because the Delhi airport can't battle fog, Beckett and his friends might just fly by.