Fog diverts 10 Kochi flights

Kochi: A total of ten flights were diverted from the Cochin international airport at Nedumbassery on Thursday morning due to heavy fog prevailing in the area. The flights that were set to land from 6.55 am to 8.40 am were diverted to other airports. The first one to be diverted was the Indigo flight coming from Sharjah and set to land at 6.59 am. It was diverted to Chennai. The Indigo flight from Doha which came at 7.24 am was diverted to the Trivandrum airport.

An Air India flight which came from Trivandrum was redirected to Trivandrum itself at 7.15 am while another Air India flight from Jeddah arrived at the same time and was diverted to Trivandrum. An Oman Air flight which came from Muscat at 8.10 am was redirected to Calicut airport. An Air Asia flight which came from Bangalore and a Jet Airways flight which came from Chennai at 8.15 am were redirected to Bangalore and Coimbatore airports respectively. The Indigo flight that came from Hyderabad was redirected to Coimbatore at 8.24 am.

A Go Air flight which arrived from Mumbai was redirected at 8.34 am to Bangalore while an Air Asia flight that came from Kuala Lumpur was redirected to Coimbatore at 8.38 am. A Cochin International Airport Limited official said that all flights reported back to Cochin airport by noon. “It was heavy fog and not smog that caused the flight diversion. The airport area is largely free from pollution,” the official added.