Indian govt changes rules to allow flight movements in reduced visibility

According to a PTI report, with fog disrupting flight operations from Delhi and other North Indian cities, the Indian government yesterday changed its rules to allow flight movements in reduced visibility conditions so as to ensure minimum inconvenience to passengers. 

As 38 flights were cancelled and 42, including 14 international flights, diverted due to fog, particularly in Delhi, S N A Zaidi, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) reviewed the situations with stakeholders including officials of airlines, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Meteorological Department. 

“The ministry has taken a number of steps to ensure that during fog and low visibility period, the safety of flight operations is maintained and inconvenience to passengers is minimised. It is further reiterated that ministry and DGCA attaches paramount importance to safety of flight operations during fog period.”

Under the new rules put in place, the visibility range has been brought down from 175 metres to 150 metres for operation of large aircraft and 150 metres to 125 metres for smaller planes. This step will facilitate flight operations at a lower visibility conditions and reduce delays. No flights will be operated if the visibility is lower than 50 metres. The new rules also ensure that airline would not carry out boarding of passengers till the visibility reaches 125 metres. 

“Presently, at least 300 aircraft are category 3B compliant and about 2100 pilots are category 3B trained. So we have a large number of aircraft and pilot who can land during low visibility conditions up to a visibility of 50 metres,” added Zaidi.

Under category 3B instrument landing system, a flight can operate if the visibility is more than 50 metres. “We've also taken a step that aircraft which are not compliant with category 3B conditions will follow a separate fog schedule. Those aircraft which are not compliant with 3B instrument landing system will land only after 10 am when the visibility is good. These aircraft, if they come to Delhi, will have to follow this rule,” mentioned Zaidi.