A short perspective on why flights are being delayed
November 27, 2016- Kathmandu
Many airlines companies are constantly delaying flights these days and the tickets have been rescheduled. There can be different reasons for this constant rescheduling of flights. As the winter has come, the constant presence of fog, mostly in the morning creates poor visibility and restricts Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flights whose alternative is Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flights. Such IFR flights can only be conducted by IFR certified aircraft in IFR equipped airports.
But only few airports are IFR equipped which includes Kathmandu, Bhairahawa, Chandragadhi, Biratnagar and Nepalgunj. In addition to being IFR equipped, for any certified aircraft to land in IFR airport, two other alternative aerodromes must be in operation. When all the airports including the destination and the alternative aerodromes are in operation, only then the aircraft are given permission to fly to their destination.
Since most of the aerodromes have VFR operation, they remain closed in the early morning due to fog and haze, the flights are rescheduled and even if the Kathmandu Airport is open, the flight cannot be conducted. Another reason for the delay is also that the holding time in the sky is more and the international traffic is given more priority while the domestic flights are delayed.
If all the airports are IFR equipped, the delaying will get reduced to a great extent.
