Jaipur Airport to beat fog this season, gets CAT IIIB

Passengers flying in and out of Jaipur airport are likely to face less delays or cancellations of their flights during the on-going winter season as the AAI-run aerodrome is all set to become CAT-IIIB airport from early next month.
The CAT-IIIB operations at the airport here would help aircraft land in dense fog conditions with this hi-tech navigation and landing equipment.
Jaipur Airport is already equipped with ILS (Cat-II), which has an RVR (runway visual range) of 300 meters and is not adequate to help flights land in thick fog due to poor visibility.
"Jaipur Airport will become CAT-IIIB compliant from 5 AM of December 8," a senior airport official said.

Domestic airlines are required to deploy only CAT-III compliant planes and crew trained to fly under low visibility conditions while operating in and out of an airport equipped with CAT IIIB system.
At present, only Delhi Airport is equipped with such a system.

Instrument Landing System (Category-III) is an advanced navigation aid empowering an aircraft to land under foggy conditions. While a Category-IIIA approach is a precision instrument approach and landing that enables a plane to land with a runway visual range (RVR) of 200 meters, Category-IIIB helps in landing with an RVR of less than 50 meters.
However, for the Jaipur airport, the RVR is set at 175 metres, which makes it a "restricted" CAT-IIIB operations aerodrome, the official said.

Jaipur Airport, handles 96 arrival and departures in a single day.
"Moreover, by upgrading the airport to CAT-III level, the traffic bound for Delhi airport can also be diverted to Jaipur during the peak foggy season which, in turn, will lessen the burden at Delhi airport as well," the official said.
Government had in December 2015 announced that 13 more airports, including Amritsar, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Patna and Lucknow, will be made CAT-III compliant to ensure seamless flight operations even during foggy conditions.