Air and rail traffic was severely on Monday hit in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab due to dense fog that enveloped the region with about 100 flights being delayed, six cancelled and two diverted from the IGI airport in New Delhi, while over 15 trains, including Rajdhanis, were running late.Flight operations at the Indira Gandhi international airport here came to standstill this morning with the general visibility falling below 100 metres and runway visibility range (RVR) dipping to less than 50 metres, below the required minimum of 100 metres for flight operations.This led to disruption in arrival and departure of flights, airport sources said, noting that the delayed flights included four on international routes.Heavy fog enveloped the IGI airport at around 4 am forcing the authorities to divert two international flights - Royal Jordanian Airlines from Amman and Jet Airways' Dubai-Delhi - to Mumbai, they said.Five domestic flights and one on an international route were cancelled, the sources said.Delhi experienced a minimum temperature of 8.4 degrees Celsius this morning, which is one degree above normal, the Met office said.The Met office has forecast another foggy morning tomorrow with the minimum temperature hovering around nine degrees Celsius.Several trains, including Rajdhanis, to and from the railway stations in Delhi were running several hours behind schedule, some up to even seven hours. The Rajdhanis running late included Mumbai-Delhi, Howrah-New Delhi, Rajindra Nagar (Patna)-New Delhi and Bhubhaneswar-New Delhi. They were running two to three hours behind schedule.Most of the early morning flights to Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Mumbai, Coimbatore and Bhopal were delayed by up to three to four hours, the sources said.The international flights from Kathmandu, Abu Dhabi and other destinations were also delayed.Some flights, mostly foreign-bound, operated with the help of CAT-III B flight operation systems, they said, adding that the first flight took off at 11 am in the morning.The poor visibility forced the airport authorities to initiate Low Visibility Procedures (LVP) when the range dipped below 800 metres. The fog played the spoil sport for the passengers who had planned to catch early morning flights."The delays are due to heavy fog in Delhi and other parts of north India. The trains are currently stranded at railways stations near Delhi," said a Northern Railway spokesperson.The long distance trains running late due to fog were Gaya-New Delhi Mahabodi Express, Chennai Central-New Delhi Grand Trunk Express, Allahabad-New Delhi Prayagraj Express, Howrah-New Delhi Poorva Express and Udhampur-New Delhi UttarSampark Kranti Express.No flight has landed or taken off from Raja Sansi airport in Amritsar in the last two days."We have nine each international and domestic incoming and outgoing flights from Amritsar daily. Though we have CAT-I Instrument Landing System, but due to fog not a single flight has landed or taken off since December 27," Amritsar Airport Director Arun Talwar said.In Chandigarh, visibility was reduced to 50 metre on Monday morning, resulting in cancellation of two Mumbai-bound flights, the airline officials said.Rail traffic across Punjab and Haryana was adversely hit due to fog as several trains were running two-six hours behind the schedule.Reports said that the vehicular traffic along the national and state highways in the two states was also thrown out of gear, due to zero visibility.
