Abstract
Stable and clear atmospheric conditions, lower surface temperatures, an ample moisture supply, and a strong low-level inversion persisting for most of the night usually facilitates the formation of dense fog during winter in Delhi. This severely hinders the flight operations at India’s busiest airport, the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, where more than 900 flight operations occur per day and an interruption can cause significant financial losses to the aviation industry. It is important to undertake a quantitative study of the estimated losses. This study, undertaken for the first time in India, aimed to evaluate the impact of dense fog at IGI Airport on economic losses which occurred during the winter season between 2011 and 2016. The breakdown of charges for different segments of flight operations for the domestic and international sectors was obtained from India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) India. A total of 653 h of dense fog between 2011 and 2016 at IGI Airport caused economic losses of approximately 3.9 million USD (248 million Indian rupees) to the airlines. The analysis further found that from 2014–2015 onwards, there has been a reduction in the number of flight delays, diversions, and cancellations by approximately 88%, 55%, and 36%, respectively, due to the strict implementation of guidelines to facilitate the Category (CAT)-III landing for aircraft during dense fog.
Highlights
Low-visibility conditions such as fog, dust, smoke, and haze, often create problems for aviation.The occurrence of dense fog often affects flight operations at airports in terms of flight delays, cancellations, and diversions, causing passengers to be severely affected and airlines to bear severe economic losses [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]
The surface visibility evolution at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for this event indicates that dense fog formation started on 28 January, 01 UTC (Figure 4f), and that between 01 UTC and 04 UTC surface visibility reduced to close to a zero value, indicating very dense fog at IGI Airport
The Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport located in India’s capital, New Delhi, is one of the largest and busiest airports in the country and in the world, in terms of passengers and cargo traffic. It is frequently affected by the occurrence of dense fog events during every winter season
Summary
The occurrence of dense fog often affects flight operations at airports in terms of flight delays, cancellations, and diversions, causing passengers to be severely affected and airlines to bear severe economic losses [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. The north and northeast plains of India, especially the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) region, are well known for dense fog throughout the winter season. Fog in the northern region of India is predominantly formed during the peak winter season over various temporal and spatial scales under a variety of meteorological conditions [11,12,13,14,15,16]. It shows significant variability from year to year depending on a combination of large-scale and meso-scale meteorological conditions [11,12,15,16]
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