Chandigarh, Jan 16: Flight schedules at Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport collapsed today as dense fog and poor visibility stalled operations for most of the morning. Travelers faced significant disruptions, with many arrivals and departures pushed back by four to five hours, while several early morning domestic routes were scrapped entirely.
The first successful departure did not occur until 11:49 a.m. when a flight left for Lucknow. This was followed shortly by departures to Delhi and Mumbai just before noon. Until these late-morning movements, the tarmac remained silent as thick mist prevented safe takeoffs.
“The early morning arrivals from Delhi, Pune, Jaipur, and Bengaluru had to be cancelled,” an airport official noted while discussing the impact of the weather on the day’s operations.
The weather forced a flight from Hyderabad, originally slated to land in Chandigarh at 12:05 p.m., to divert to Jaipur. Meanwhile, passengers headed to Goa saw their 9:50 a.m. flight rescheduled for 1:30 p.m. Those traveling to Srinagar faced even steeper delays, with a 2:10 p.m. departure pushed late into the evening at 6:55 p.m.
International travel was also affected, with the arrival from Abu Dhabi rescheduled for 1:40 p.m. Despite the late start, airport staff mentioned that they were working to clear the backlog caused by the morning’s visibility constraints.
