Thick fog disrupts road, air traffic

LAHORE
Dense fog on Saturday night did not allow even a single flight to depart or arrive on time causing 27 flight delays, nine cancellations, closure of Lahore-Islamabad Motorway and mass delays in the rail schedule.
Out of the 27 flights delayed five were international departures, seven domestic, 13 international arrivals while seven were domestic arrivals. Seven domestic while three international flights were cancelled.
The scenes at Allama Iqbal International Airport were worrisome as the frustrated passengers continued to wait at the terminal in the inconvenient cold while those with long delays kept shuttling from home to airport. The airline authorities too were seemingly helpless at the hands of the weather. The situation of rail travel was not so different. All trains were lagging behind schedule with the Business Train topping the charts with 11 hours of delay. The Shalimar Night Coach was 10 hours late while all other trains were lagging between 4-5 hours.
A common problem, both for those travelling by air or rail, was the inability of the authorities to notify the change in schedule or the delays to the passengers which added agony to the already frustrating inconvenience. The Lahore-Islambad Motorway was closed for operation on Saturday night and could not resume service till 10:40 on Sunday morning. A westerly wave is likely to enter Pakistan (through Balochistan) on Monday (today) evening and is expected to suppress the prevailing foggy conditions in the plains of the country during Sunday to Wednesday. This might bring sanity to the affairs and the airlines might be able to sort their and passengers’ problems.