FogCare: Air India's New Initiative To Handle Weather Delays & Cancellations

Air India has embarked on a new initiative to advise its passengers flying out of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) of options when fog interferes with flight schedules. This push notification service is not just intended to preemptively maintain schedule integrity, but to respect customers’ time. For the past few weeks, intense fog has hit India again as it did in 2019 and in January 2016 when the above photo was taken. Although as per a statement from Air India, the airline has CAT-III Instrument Landing System (ILS) which enables automatic landings and allows for one to get to 50 feet above runway altitude before having to see the runway or abort. Nonetheless even having the best ILS that is much more evolved than the initial work of the United Kingdom’s Blind Landing Experimental Unit is sometimes insufficient. According to a December 22, 2022 edition of the Tribune of India, there were significant delays of 30 flights, and 6 flights were canceled by all airlines due to fog events. Although only one Air India flight was affected – regional flight 9I-806 to Delhi – with a two-hour delayed departure, the airline believes in being proactive. Rajesh Dogra, Chief Customer Experience Officer and Global Head of Airport Operations, Air India shared some thoughts: "We will strive to give our customers up to date information on whether their flight has been impacted by fog and help them make the best choice given the circumstances. By proactively tackling the issue, we will be able to maintain the overall network schedule integrity as best as possible, and offer a better experience to all passengers, particularly those on flights unaffected by fog in Delhi, who would otherwise have been subjected to the cascading effects of rolling fog delays."<br/>