Chaos at airport highlights infrastructure woes

New Delhi: In what's become an annual crisis, winter fog is again crippling air traffic in and out of India's capital, and the city's run-down domestic airport once again finds itself unable to handle the mass of frazzled and frustrated passengers crowding terminals as flight after flight is canceled or delayed.
New Delhi domestic airport suffers every winter because most of India's domestic airlines don't have pilots and planes equipped to takeoff and land in poor weather.
The airport, Palam Airport, has an annual capacity for 12 million passengers, but deals with more than 16 million. Conditions at the Indira Gandhi International Airport were not much better, although delays were fewer because most foreign airlines can land in poor weather.
Last year, after many delays, the government turned over the modernization of New Delhi's and Mumbai's airports to two private consortiums. For New Delhi's airports, new runways and swanky terminals are planned by 2010, the year the city hosts the Commonwealth Games.
03/01/07 The Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, France

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