Delhi Airport braces up for foggy days ahead

New Delhi, Dec 20 (PTI) With India's Met department predicting 120 hours of dense fog till mid February, Delhi Airport is bracing up for winter woes by providing additional bays to function in low visibility, flight updates on social networking sites and better facilities for passengers in case of disruptions. "It is primarily dense fog that can affect the airline operations and as per our predictions there will be around 120 hours of dense fog this year," R K Jenamani, Director of the Meteorological office at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, told reporters today. "The fog season as per our predictions would start from December 20 and last till February 20. But the stretch of days on which fog would appear would be interrupted by days when the skies are clear," Jenamani said. 11 flights were cancelled yesterday due to fog at Delhi and other airports, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) said. "Chances are that there may be a stretch of 15 to 20 days when fog may be more intense than the rest of the period," Jenamani said. DIAL officials said that they had made extensive preparations to deal with the fog. Three runways 28, 29 and 11 at the IGI Airport were certified for CAT III B operations which allowed landing of compliant planes even when the visibility has dropped to 50 meters, Marcel Hungerbuehler, chief operating officer of DIAL said. DIAL officials said that apart from sharing fog related details and status of flights on their websites, they would post information on social networking sites like Google and Twitter. Four additional help desks are also provided for assistance and information to passengers, officials said. The seating capacity at Terminal 3 has also been increased from 12,000 to 13,150 official said. The seating capacity at the Domestic airport has been increased to 2700 from the earlier 2200, DIAL officials said. Officials said that DIAL had trained its staff for the fog challenge and had also earmarked areas where airlines could offer food to passengers in case flights are delayed. Airport officials said that for the first time transit hotels for both the international and the domestic passengers would be available for passengers in addition to snooze cabins. PTI