Bear the pain, says Praful on flight delays

New Delhi: Air-traffic congestion and the resulting flight delays that have become a routine at the Delhi airport are a small price to pay for the growth of the aviation sector, according to Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.
“There are only about 15-minute delays during the peak hour,” Patel claimed on Saturday, adding, “you cannot have painless growth”. Patel was speaking to HT on the sidelines of a function to lay the foundation stone for a new airport terminal.
However, airport officials who did not wish to be named said the average flight delay was of 45 minutes.
They blamed the delay on growing traffic and the absence of infrastructure and manpower at the airport to handle such pressure. The airport handles 650 flights a day.
Even as the minister was giving his speech, more than 100 flights were delayed by 3-4 hours at the IGI airport, barely a kilometre away, due to dense fog in the morning. There was no flight operation from 8 a.m. to 9.50 a.m.
17/02/07 Sidhartha Roy/Hindustan Times

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Categories: General Aviation feb 2007