“Airport terminals are designed for a capacity that should be able to meet the peak load for over 99 per cent of the time in a year,” Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) MD & CEO Hari Marar had told me some time ago.
Apparently, this is the season for that remaining one per cent of the time.
It is beginning to feel a lot like crunch time as leading airports across India see disruptions, systems chaos, long queues, and frayed nerves.
Happy holidays? Not quite, for flight delays and cancellations are also being reported across the world—from the US, the biggest aviation market, to Bangkok, one of the biggest holiday destinations during this time of the year.
Can India be far behind? Fog-related delays led to over 270 flights delayed and 10 cancellations as of Tuesday afternoon.
It was the third day in a row that the nation witnessed fog disruption. The situation was worse over the past few days, with Sunday seeing as many as 100 flights cancelled and over 450 running late.
Due to prevailing fog conditions in parts of Northern India, airport operations have been impacted. Passengers are advised to proactively check flight status, remain in touch with their airlines and plan travel accordingly.
— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 20, 2025
Passenger facilitation teams are available at airports…
Fog in Delhi—home to one of the busiest airports in India—means disruption across the country.
Both IndiGo and Air India use the capital’s airport as their hub, in a hub-and-spoke model, which connects cities with each other.
So, delays in Delhi mean corresponding flights also get disrupted, leading to varying degrees of mayhem in airports across the country. Notably, Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport, Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya Airport, and Uttarakhand's Pantnagar Airport also get affected by fog at times.
Ironically, India is just emerging out of the massive disruption caused by IndiGo’s operational meltdown in the first week of December: probably the reason why the airline was at pains to point out that this time round, the delays were “unfortunately beyond our control”, as per its statement.
While the festive season rush is not exactly a new thing, year after year, aviation authorities smugly let the chaos accumulate.
This happens due to two reasons and a crucial aberration.
Firstly, the social reason: The cooler months are filled with festivals and holidays ranging from Diwali to Christmas and New Year, while the latter is the traditional year-ending period when people take a break for a holiday or to ring in the New Year with the three Rs.
The second reason is economic: Knowing the winter season rush, airlines jack up their schedules, meaning there are more flights—and more passengers for those flights—crowding our airports.
This is where BIAL CEO Marar's comment comes in. While more infrastructure—including more check-in counters, security personnel, and gates—means more expenses, most airports and airlines try to manage the rush period with regular logistics.
The result? Crowds jamming airports and gargantuan queues at check-in and security.
Then, all it takes is one aberration for chaos to spread—an aircraft or two going for maintenance, a couple of pilots calling in sick leading to cancellations, or the fog delaying flights.
Of course, winter weather is a big spoiler—especially in the western world, where a curious combination of the Christmas holiday rush and heavy snow disrupts plans year in and year out.
As of December 19, more than 1,200 flights were cancelled and more than 7,000 delayed in the US alone, according to FlightAware. The worst affected US places were Chicago, Atlanta, and Newark.
Coming back to India, the fog delays also hide another smart economic game played by some of the airliners in the country.
Notably, the Delhi airport does have a CAT III instrument landing system, which allows flights to land in dense fog, even when the visibility is down to just 50m.
Despite this, fog-induced flight disruptions are an annual ritual of sorts, playing out for days across December to sometimes even early February. This is simply because most airlines have not trained their pilots in CAT III landings.
If you wonder why they aren't trained in CAT III landings, considering all the massive travel disruptions the country faces every winter, the answer is simple: it’s all about the money!
CAT III training is not only expensive, but also means airlines will have to take their pilots off their regular flying schedule and get them trained.
For what? According to some private airlines, that kind of spending, for what they term ‘just a few days in a year’, is not worth their profit margins. Try telling that to a desperate passenger waiting at an airport right now.
