New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS): Air India on Saturday launched the new "FogCare" initiative which will take care of unforeseen circumstances, such as delays and cancellations of flights, due to thick fog during the winter season.
This initiative will initially be launched for flights departing from and arriving at Delhi's IGI Airport.
Under FogCare, Air India will take proactive steps to isolate the impact of fog on flight operations, which usually takes place in the early mornings and late evenings, but often also cascades throughout the day.
The carrier will reach out to customers and give them easy options to reschedule or cancel their impacted flights at no extra cost.
Passengers of impacted flights can make the decision to not travel to the airport and avoid the inconvenience of long waits.
This will also serve to ease congestion at the airports.
E-mails, calls and SMS with flight-specific advisories will be sent to passengers on impacted flights, giving them easy options to minimise inconvenience due to fog-related disruptions.
Commenting on the initiative, Rajesh Dogra, Chief Customer Experience Officer and Global Head of Airport Operations, Air India, said: "We are pleased to launch the FogCare initiative, a customer centric measure to ensure the best possible experience for our customers. This is one more step in our journey to becoming a world-class airline and will significantly improve the passenger experience during fog affected days.
"We will strive to give our customers up to date information on whether their flight has been impacted by fog and help them make the best choice given the circumstances. By proactively tackling the issue, we will be able to maintain the overall network schedule integrity as best as possible, and offer a better experience to all passengers, particularly those on flights unaffected by fog in Delhi, who would otherwise have been subjected to the cascading effects of rolling fog delays."
An Air India spokesperson said that the airline is also ensuring adequate availability of aircraft, pilots, maintenance, and cabin crew to be able to deal with fog-related exigencies.
With a fully trained cockpit crew, that is equipped with the capability to operate in low visibility conditions through the CAT-III Instrument Landing System (ILS), Air India has geared up to minimise disruption due to fog.
Additionally, a campaign to create awareness around the initiative will be launched, along with a dedicated FogCare web page that is being created on www.airindia.com.
Passengers can find more information, including detailed FAQs, live information on the flight status as well as support for rescheduling and refunds on this page, the spokesperson added.