Dense fog hits Bagdogra flights, trains services

SNS, Siliguri, 10 December 2014: Poor visibility induced by dense fog disrupted flight services at Bagdogra Airport today. According to airport officials, five of the total 15 flights, had to be cancelled due to poor visibility. Train services were also hit by the fog, while the mercury is likely to plummet further in Siliguri and its adjoining areas.

One Air India flight--Kolkata-Bagdogra-Kolkata, a SpiceJet flight--Kolkata-Bagdogra-Kolkata, another Delhi-Bagdogra-Guwahati SpiceJet flight, a Kolkata-Bagdogra-Guwahati Indigo flight and another Delhi-Bagdogra-Kolkata Indigo flight were cancelled today, airport officials said. Among the many other passengers was Darjeeling district Magistrate Puneet Yadav, who was traveling in the Indigo flight (Kolkata-Bagdogra-Guwahati). Mr Yadav was returning from Kolkata today after attending a meeting there over land acquisition for a National Highway, when the flight was diverted to Guwahati as it could not land at Bagdogra airport.

Railway officials, meanwhile, said trains coming from Delhi and Kolkata at the NJP station are being delayed for at least two hours on an average for the past few days due to dense fog. “The Assam-bound Rajdhani Express from Delhi which was scheduled to arrive at the NJP station at 10.45 am, arrived at 2.05 pm today,” said a railway official.

Bagdogra airport director Rakesh Sahay said flights could not land at the airport due to poor visibility.

Weather experts said the fog is likely to hover around Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and surrounding areas for the next few days. “The minimum temperature in the region was 13 degree Celsius, while the maximum temperature was 22 degrees today. The temperature is likely to go down and the fog will also hang there over the next few days,” said the in-charge of the North Bengal University Weather Service Station, Prof Subir Sarkar.

Meanwhile, airport officials held a meeting on security issues, as passengers of international and domestic flights were mixing up at the airport.

“If an international flight and a domestic flight land at a same time, there is a possibility of the passengers mixing up, resulting in security problems,” Mr Sahay said.

According to airport sources, boarding passes can be easily changed and anything can be supplied through the domestic passengers as they do not go through any checking by the customs personnel.

“There will also be separate conveyor belts for international and domestic passengers so that they can be identified easily,” Mr Sahay added. Sources said that “new systems” would be partially implemented within 15 days, while they will take another six months to fully implement them. Customs officials, and officials of the Special Branch and other security related departments, the civil engineering, and electrical engineering departments of the airport attended the meeting.