Despite private sector developer Delhi International Airport Ltd bracing for a long and foggy winter with added infrastructure, the shortage of CAT III pilots in some airlines could still mean long delays for passengers.
These annual disruptions take place for about a week to 10 days in December-January, which coincides with the peak tourist season.
As part of its guidelines for low-visibility conditions at Delhi airport, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which issued guidelines on Tuesday, has directed airlines to ensure that only those pilots who are adequately trained for landing and taking off during low-visibility conditions should be rostered to operate flights to and from Delhi.
However, carriers like SpiceJet and JetLite admit that they do not have enough CAT III A trained pilots, or pilots who are trained to take off and land at airports that have a visibility of over 200 metres.
CAT III B trained pilots can land in visibility of above 50 metres.
Said a senior executive of Spice Jet: "We don't have CAT III compliant pilots as we don't think it is viable to spend Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh to train them for it at all." Jet Lite sources also confirmed that they do not have CAT III-compliant pilots currently.
Other airlines are, however, taking some corrective action. Air Deccan, the country's largest low-cost carrier, is doubling its CAT III compliant pilots from 20 to 40.
"This number will be enough for us to land in Delhi, where we have five flights a day," said a senior executive of the carrier.
He, however, pointed out that the pilots are only CAT III A compliant. This would not be sufficient since most of the fog-bound days had visibilities of less than 200 metres, which required pilots with CAT III B compliance.
He suggests that the process for pilots to acquire CAT III B compliance will take time.
"The process is fixed by DGCA as it will only give pilots CAT III B compliance after they go through CAT III A and before that CAT II. So the process takes time," the executive added.
However, IndiGO has already started training as many as 106 pilots to be CAT III compliant by mid-January. "Eighty per cent of our pilots will be CAT III complaint by January," said Bruce Ashby, CEO of the carrier.
This might be a bit late for this winter. National carrier Air India and Jet Airways are the only two airlines that say they have have enough CAT III compliant pilots to take on Delhi's winter fog.
Despite the uncertainties, the DGCA is optimistic. Director DGCA Kanu Gohain said, "We are satisfied with the number of CAT III pilots that we have in the country at present."
In winter as many as 2.6 million domestic passengers are expected to land ot fly from Delhi in the winter months which is the only CAT III compliant airport.
As an interim measure DIAL is extending the waiting area in terminal 1B. "The extended area which has a seating capacity of 300 to 400 people will have food and beverage kiosks, flight information display, public address systems, and entertainment facilities for the customers," said a DIAL executive.
DIAL is also training about 60 customer service officials to guide the waiting passengers at every point in time regarding check-in, security or waiting in the lounge depending on the flight timings and delays.
The officials will be in service by the end of this month.
"We also have new IT systems in place that should enable us to get faster and more efficient information about flight positions when an aircraft comes close to the airport. We have also asked the airlines to give us an advance notification regarding their CAT III compliant crew and aircraft so that we can give priority to the CAT III complaint flights, assess delays and guide waiting passengers accordingly," added a DIAL executive.
The addition of five new rapid exit taxiways and link taxiways is also expected to cut down flight delays to a large extent. Also, the number of CAT III compliant parking stands with better lighting facilities have also been doubled from around 25 to 47.
However, aiport executives say that while most airlines had new aircraft that are CAT III compliant, the number of CAT III trained pilots still remains very low.
"The situation is the same as last year, when 95 per cent of CAT III landings were of Indian Airlines (now Air India) flights, which have the largest number of CAT III pilots in the country," said a source.
As part of its guidelines for low visibility conditions at the Delhi airport, the DGCA, which issued guidelines on Tuesday, has directed airlines to ensure that only those pilots who are adequately trained for landing and taking off during low visibility conditions should be rostered to operate flights to and from Delhi.
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