Passengers will have to pay extra for baggage checking

Prateek Chauhan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 18

At Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), now passengers would have to pay upto Rs 50 for baggage checking under X-rays, as per the new guidelines for the baggage checking. These charges have been fixed as per the capacity of the aircrafts.

In various cities of India, the aircraft providing services for the domestic flights will have to be paid from Rs 110-880. However, to the aircraft going to different countries will have to be paid from $149.33-$209.55 depending on the aircraft capacity. The fee is Rs110 for 25-seat aircrafts, Rs 220 for 26-50 seated aircrafts, Rs 495 for 51-100 seated aircrafts, Rs 770 for 101-200 seated aircrafts and Rs 880 for beyond. Likewise, the rules are imposed for the international aircrafts as well.

The DIAL officials told that the Airport Electronic Regulatory Authority has issued these directives. The money will be charged from the aircraft operating companies.

While the authority has not mentioned it, but the money may likely be taken from the passengers.

Dense fog affects around 150 departures

Dense fog in several parts of Delhi disrupted departures of nearly 150 flights at the IGIA on Friday morning, as per a DIAL official.

The situation remained same at most of the north India’s airports, he said.

At IGIA, flight operations were hit between 5.30am and 1pm as the live runway visibility remained low, DIAL official said.

"Around 97 per cent of these 200 flights were either departing or arriving beyond their scheduled time due to dense fog that remained till around 10.20am. Rest were either diverted or cancelled," the official said.

Departures were largely put on hold and five flights were diverted between 5.30am and 10.20am. Arrivals were happening only intermittently between 6am and 7.20am. One of the flights was coming from Singapore and it was diverted to Kolkata, another official said.

Low Visibility Procedure was lifted for just 5-7 minutes, DIAL official added.

Four flights — coming from Bangkok, Dubai, Guwahati and Muscat, respectively — were diverted to Jaipur between 7.30am and 10.20am, he said.

"Very few aircraft were departing till afternoon and that too on the basis of their size, visibility and ATC (air traffic control) clearance for taking off," the official said.

At the airport, the minimum runway visibility required to take off is 100m.

The airport was facing low visibility conditions since 4am due to dense fog.