January 4, 2012: Flights, trains and buses traveling both to and from the Tricity experienced lengthy delays due to dense early morning fog.
Every one of Chandigarh railway station’s nine daily arrivals were delayed by one hour or more. Of the three flights coming in from Delhi, only one Air India flight was not canceled. Two flights departing later in the day still experienced delays, arriving in Chandigarh about one and a half hours late.
Officials at the railway station gave a full report of the late arrivals, saying that New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Express arrived two hours late, the morning New Delhi-Kalka Himalayan Queen was 1.40 hours behind schedule, Lucknow-Chandigarh Express was late by 3.25 hours, Howrah-Kalka Mail was delayed by a little over seven hours, Amritsar-Chandigarh Duronto Express was 1.30 hours late and and New Delhi-Chandigarh Jan Shatabdi arrived 55 minutes after its scheduled time.
The evening New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Express and New Delhi-Chandigarh Jan Shatabdi were reportedly also delayed by at least one and one half hours.
According to airport officials, one Kingfisher and two Jet Airways flights were cancelled from New Delhi. Delayed flights departing from Chandigarh included one flight each of Kingfisher and Jet Airways. Both of these were delayed by about one and a half hours.
Buses were also dealing with hefty delays as heavy fog in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh slowed down operations for private and state-owned buses alike. As a result, bus arrivals at Chandigarh were far behind schedule.