Jyotiraditya Scindia gives assurance amidst anger over Delhi flights delay

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has assured travellers that all stakeholders at the Delhi airport are "working round the clock" and "trying their best" to minimise passenger inconvenience as hundreds of flights have either been cancelled or delayed due to dense fog in the national capital.

"I would like to assure everyone that all stakeholders are working round the clock to minimise the fog-related impact," Scindia wrote on X.

His tweet came after visibility touched zero at Delhi airport on Sunday, severely affecting flight operations, which were already marred by cancellations and delays due to dense fog in the national capital over the past few days. The situation, though improved mildly on Monday, continued to affect flight operations as more than 100 flights connecting Delhi to various other parts of the country were either cancelled or delayed by several hours.

Delhi has two CAT III-enabled runways, which are equipped to handle low visibility up to 50 metres. One of these - runway 28/10 has been closed for scheduled re-carpeting since mid-September, according to news agency ANI, while the other one was shut on Sunday morning for a few hours. Therefore, during those few hours on Sunday morning, the Delhi airport had no CAT III-enabled runway operational.

This intensified the chaos at the venue, with passengers complaining that they were not informed about the reason behind the delays or cancellations. Visuals at the airport showed people waiting in long queues for hours, some even sitting or lying on the floor, waiting to get an update on their flight status.

Runway 28/10 has been closed for scheduled re-carpeting since mid-September, according to ANI.

Addressing the shutting of the runway, Scindia said that the decision was made keeping passengers' safety in mind, which remains the "foremost priority for all in the aviation ecosystem".

"Yesterday, Delhi witnessed unprecedented fog wherein visibility fluctuated for several hours, and at times, dropped to zero between 5 AM to 9 AM. The authorities, therefore, were compelled to enforce a shut-down of operations for some time even on CAT III runways (CAT III runways cannot handle Zero-Visibility operations)," his post on the micro-blogging site read.

The minister further wrote that the Delhi airport has been asked to speed up the operationalisation of a fourth runway - also CAT III-enabled - to DGCA's standards to get a nod for the same. This is part of a few steps, Scindia mentioned, that have been taken to address the chaos.

"The DGCA will issue an SOP for airlines on better communication and facilitation of passengers to minimise discomfort in view of flight cancellations and delays due to adverse weather," he tweeted.

Scindia also referred to "incidents of unruly behaviour" during the chaos, calling them "unacceptable" and cautioned that those will be handled "strongly" as per the existing legal provisions. His remark could be in reference to the IndiGo passenger, who slapped the pilot of the Delhi-Goa flight, after it was delayed for 13 hours.