Six flights cancelled due to poor visibility

Patna: Six flights operating to and from Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport were cancelled on Saturday due to poor visibility caused by the foggy conditions.

Those cancelled were GoAir’s G8-351 (Mumbai) and G8-2506, G8-133 (Delhi) flights and IndiGo’s 6E-982 (Hyderabad), 6E-6105 (Kolkata) and 6E-2614 (Delhi) flights.

The visibility was less than 50 metres from 7am to 9.45am. “The minimum runway visual range (RVR) visibility of 1,000m was achieved at 12 noon. The pilot needs a minimum visibility of 400m for take-off and 1,000m for landing,” weatherman Kamal Singh Gupta of Patna Meteorological Centre told this newspaper.

Low visibility triggered by the fog delayed the arrival of 22 flights against 37 operated on Saturday. The departure of nine flights was also affected, said an airport official. The major disruption took place between 8am and 4pm as the delay in arrival of flights led to bunching of aircraft affecting their departures and the other scheduled flights as well.