Foggy vision

This refers to the letter, ‘The other side’ (January 10) by Mukhtar Ahmed in response to the letter, ‘In defence of CAA’ (January 8) by Waleed Khan. Every year, fog starts engulfing Lahore, like Delhi, from the last week of November to mid February, causing inconvenience to passengers and disrupting airline traffic. The Civil Aviation in India installed Category III B on Delhi’s three runways in December 2008, which over the years have been upgraded, and all aircraft equipped with the capability can land with RVR (runway visual range) of less than 175 meters but not below 50 metres and the reduced Decision Height of up to 50 feet.
The CAA collects taxes and revenues from passengers, airlines and cargo agencies to regulate flight safety and assure regularity of schedule with the minimum of diversions. For CAT III B capacity, the authority has to ensure that airports such as the one in Lahore have sufficient fire-fighting capacity with chemical foam available 24/7, apart from trained technical professionals to calibrate and maintain such equipment. Functioning of the CAT III B equipment can be disrupted if high-rises are allowed within the sensitive range and envelope of the transmitters.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore