Fog delays unlikely this winter as airlines train more pilots

New Delhi, Nov 21 : Unlike previous years, flight operations at the Delhi airport will not be hit by fog during this winter as most domestic careers have enough trained pilots who can fly aircraft even in low visible conditions, airlines officials said.

Several hundred flights were cancelled or delayed for hours last year at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here due to fog as the domestic operators except Air India did not have required number of CAT III-trained pilots.

The pilots trained on CAT III landing system can fly in low visibility conditions.

Airlines officials said the total number of CAT III compliant planes in the domestic sector has gone up from 162 last year to 206.

Currently, Air India (domestic) has 75 CAT III-trained pilots, while it has as many aircraft.

Similarly, Kingfisher Airlines has 35 CAT II trained pilots for as many flights, while SpiceJet has 19 trained pilots with fleet size of 19.

GoAir has eight trained pilots with fleet size of eight, while IndiGo, with 22 trained pilots, follow suit.

But leading private airline Jet Airways and its low-cost carrier JetLite have less number of CAT III pilots in comparison with others.

Jet Airways operates 52 aircraft on the domestic route, but it has only 40 trained pilots. JetLite has seven such pilots for a fleet size of 17 aircraft.

However, the airline said this would not disturb its flight schedules during the winter.

The IGI Airport is the only airport in India that has gadgets installed for CAT III operations.

"Fog conditions are dominant only in northern states that affect operations at New Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Amritsar and Jammu airports," an Airport Authority of India official said.

Airlines have for long been reluctant to train pilots in CAT-III operations as it a costly affair.

However, aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has made it mandatory for airlines to have adequate number of CAT III trained pilots, failing which they would not be given slots for winter schedules.

According to Nasim Zaidi, director general of DGCA, there has been considerable increase in CAT-III flights this year and most of the airlines have good number of trained pilots.

The Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the GMR-owned developer of IGI Airport, has informed DGCA that its has 55 CAT-III compliant bays at the airport, out of which 36 are for domestic flights.