TNN

New Delhi, Jan 21: Fog will soon cease to be the great leveller that currently forces the noveau rich to fly with the aam admi in CAT III compliant schedule airlines during winter.

Based on requests from several owners of private planes and charter operators to allow their aircraft to become CAT III-compliant, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has set up a panel to find out how this can be made possible.

At present, instrument landing system (ILS) norms that allow movement under different fog conditions that are ranked I, II or III based on how poor visibility is, exist only for schedule airlines. Which means, that even if the richest individuals who use their own private or charter planes can't have the CAT III rating for their aircraft and pilots.

"A committee has been set up for examining general aviation's (that operates on non-schedule permit) request for becoming CAT III compliant. At present, this compliance is only for schedule airlines. Now general aviation also wants to have planes and pilots that can operate in fog. The panel will try to work out the regulations and procedures for this," DGCA chief Nasim Zaidi said.

The request from owners of private planes to install the CAT III system that may cost upto a couple of crores along with expensive pilot training is, however, not surprising. Fog sets in anywhere from November-end and keeps descending on Delhi and other cities anywhere till February-end or early March. During this while, the Delhi ATC has instructions to give
priority of CAT III-compliant aircraft on foggy days which leaves non-compliant airlines and private planes out.

"There have been several instances when the biggest industrialists were slated to fly into Delhi in their planes. But with fog suddenly descending over Delhi, they are forced to switch over to some CAT III complaint schedule airline," said a senior ATC official.