AI gears up for winter with stand-by aircraft

NEW DELHI: If you happen to be one of the stranded air passengers this winter following flight cancellations due to fog, help is at hand. Air India — after the merger of the two public sector carriers Air India and Indian — is gearing up to avoid inconvenience to its passengers as it plans to position spare aircraft at New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. They will be flown in case flights are delayed due to fog or technical snags.

“We have suggested to them (Air India) to keep surplus aircraft at all the four metro airports to avoid any inconvenience to passengers in case of flight delay in winter,” civil aviation minister Praful Patel said. Dense fog in winter, particularly in north Indian cities such as Delhi, Amritsar, Lucknow and Chandigarh, often reduces visibility leading to flight delays.

This results in passengers waiting at airports for long hours and in some cases, leads to flight cancellations. Due to this delay, airliners fail to reach multiple destinations on time.

For example, if an aircraft originating from Delhi is flying to Bangalore with a stopover at Chennai and is delayed by two hours at Delhi, Bangalore-bound passengers at Chennai would have to wait for an additional two hours before boarding. If an airline has spare aircraft at Chennai, then it can be made use of for Bangalore-bound flyers.

“As we have started receiving delivery of the 111 aircraft ordered with Boeing and Airbus, we are planning to have at least one plane at all metro airports so that it can be used in case of cancellation of flight due to fog or any other technical problem. This would save passengers from unnecessary wait at airports,” an Air India official explained.

Airport operators are also ready with measures to provide smooth landing and taking-off of planes in foggy winter. While the Delhi airport is already equipped with CAT III instrument landing system (ILS), the Airport Authority of India (AAI) is planning to introduce CAT II at Lucknow airport. A CAT III landing system enables planes to land and take off at a visibility as low as 50 metres.