DIAL, along with ATC and the Met department, on Wednesday announced its preparedness to deal with fog at the IGI airport. For the first time, runway 09 27 has been equipped with three runway visual range (RVR) devices, which allows flight departures up to 400m of visibility.
In conjunction with ATC, DIAL has also introduced a pre-departure sequencing tool as part of Delhi airport-collaborative decision making (DA-CDM) to focus on improving air traffic flow and capacity management at airports by reducing delays, especially during fog.
According to officials, all the necessary arrangements to minimise inconvenience to passengers and ensure continuity of flight operations during low visibility period (LVP) have been ensured well before time this year.
DIAL CEO, I Prabhakara Rao, said, “Looking at the success of DA-CDM in the past two years, we have introduced pre-departure sequencing. This will enable us to recover much faster at the time of flight disruption during low visibility condition. DACDM plays a pivotal role in enhancing our overall operational efficiency. It also helped us achieve an overall on time performance (OTP) of 90% in September 2015, comparable to top airports worldwide.”
Officials said DA-CDM focuses on improving air traffic flow and capacity management at airports by reducing delays, improving the predictability of events and optimising the utilisation of resources. It involves airport operators, airlines, ground handlers and ATC, collaborating and sharing data through an automated system to increase overall efficiency. This will help reduce the workload of controllers, radio telephone congestion and increase the level of safety. “For the first time, takeoffs from runway 0927 with a visibility of 400 meters or more is possible. We are grateful to the Met office for installing 15 RVR devices at the Delhi airport and three new Drishti RVRs will soon arrive as reserve RVRs for Runway 1028. We aim to reduce delays and congestion due to fog by devising a plan that would ensure smooth flow of flight information almost on real time basis,” Rao added. ATC officials said with more and more aircraft and pilots getting CAT-III B and Low Visibility Take-Off approvals, operations at the airport will continue even in dense fog conditions.
