Over 200 flights were delayed, 19 diverted and at least 28 flights cancelled as dense fog wreaked havoc on the capital and flight schedules, causing massive inconvenience to passengers. Temperatures plummeted on Friday, affecting road and rail traffic too.

Sources said the fog was so dense that there were hardly any departures from the runways from 7 am to 9 am when the visibility remained largely below the take-off minima. A staggering 127 flights operated under the CAT-III ILS guidance system. The fog was very dense throughout the wee hours of Friday when visibility often touched zero and the runway visual range went down to just about 50 metres.
To make matters worse, the airspace was also closed for an hour from about 11 a.m. till noon as per schedule ahead of Republic Day. The backlog of flights accumulated and was gradually cleared through the day.
The chaos started after about 2 am when visibility began sharply dipping to about 50 metres. By 2.30 am, it was zero visibility. For about seven hours after that, visibility was poor with the RVR dipping, sending flight schedules into a tizzy. Passengers complained of being seated upto a few hours in some of the aircraft — in violation of DGCA rules — even as pilots waited for visibility to improve.