Low visibility: Mallya calls for priority landing pattern

Following last week8217;s thick fog at New Delhi airport, Kingfisher Airlines is now raking up the issue of priority landing during low visibility operations to avoid wasting fuel.

Following last week8217;s thick fog at New Delhi airport, Kingfisher Airlines is now raking up the issue of priority landing during low visibility operations to avoid wasting fuel.

8220;Flying into Delhi from other stations is a problem. Even if aircraft and pilots are certified for visibility upto 200 metres8212;like my pilots are8212;they are made to wait when they ask for landing clearance, since there is no system of jumping the queue or priority landing,8217;8217; said Mallya.

Kingfisher has state-of-the-art autoland systems on 17 Airbus aircraft and 40 pilots trained for Category III A operations 8211; which allows landing when runway visibility is up to 200 metres.

However, he added that take-offs from the National Capital are on time since December 13, when the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA mandated that airlines which have CAT III compliant aircraft and crew will get priority in sequencing and take-off.

The liquor baron wants the established holding pattern at airports to be altered. 8220;I am suggesting that there is a separate holding pattern, so that aircraft with higher category compliance are giving priority over others even while landing,8217;8217; Mallya added.

However, official sources say that priority landing is already being given to more compliant airlines when Category III conditions are prevalent. 8220;Air traffic controllers definitely given priority to CAT III aircraft. However, if four out of 20 aircraft waiting to land are CAT III compliant, the controller may have a problem segregating and repositioning aircraft. But it will be done, although it may take some time,8217;8217; said a senior official in Delhi. Officials in the DGCA could not be reached for comment.

Fog hits Delhi airport

New Delhi: Visibility at the Indira Gandhi International Airport runway fell to 800 metres at 10 PM on Tuesday. No major operations were affected, however, as the flights operating at this time were the international ones with pilots trained on the Category III B system- which can handle runway visibility as low as 50 metres. 8220;We initiated Low Visibility Procedures at 21:40 PM, when visibility levels started dropping to 1,200 metres in the Dwarka- Jumbo point runway. By this time the domestic flights for the day were over. The international flights are still operational,8217;8217; said an airport official at 10.45 PM. But he added that according to met inputs, things might get worse.