Fog covers part of Delhi, flight ops unaffected at IGI

Flight operations were largely unaffected at the Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi which witnessed shallow fog on Tuesday morning. Though some flights were delayed, it was due to poor weather conditions at the destinations. Most of the flights departing were largely on schedule, an airport official said.

Flights mostly to cities like Lucknow, Port Blair, Kolkata, Patna, Chandigarh were delayed due to poor weather conditions there.

Though the Met Department had predicted dense fog and issued a warning, the airport largely remained free from fog with runway visibility above 2,000 metres on the main runway through the night.

But the visibility started to dip around 8.30am.

The visibility at the new runway (29/11) and second runway (27/09) was low, forcing authorities to implement low visibility procedures.

According to Met Department, this is a temporary relief as western Disturbance (WD) is passing through the region due to which city experiences easterly winds during the day and Westerly during the nights.

"The situation would become clear by December 23 or 24 when WD would pass away. We have been issuing fog warning as fog had enveloped whole of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh since December 6," a Met Official said.

On Monday, more than 50 flights were delayed as dense fog blanketed the airport causing inconvenience to passengers.

Meanwhile, poor visibility also led to a 10-car pile-up on the Greater Noida Expressway at around 4.30am on Tuesday morning.

The collisions took place due to a container truck that broke down in the middle of the road.

Around 200 trains were affected on Monday due to dense fog. The situation is expected to worsen for rest of the 2011 and first 15 days of January 2012.