Flight cancellations climb on second day of fog at Melbourne Airport

Flight cancellations top 60 as fog descends on Melbourne Airport for a second day.

Melbourne city blanketed in fog on Tuesday. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Melbourne Airport was hopeful of clearer conditions on Wednesday after two days of heavy morning fog played havoc with flight schedules.

More than 60 domestic flights were cancelled across Monday and Tuesday and scores of services delayed when low level cloud caused “low visibility” conditions.

Virgin Australia, Jetstar and Qantas were all caught up in the mayhem, scrambling to re-accommodate passengers on alternate flights after axing 32 services Monday and 30 on Tuesday.

International flights were relatively unscathed, beyond delays of between 20 and 40 minutes.

A Melbourne Airport spokesman said when they had low visibility operations, air traffic controllers slowed the rate of takeoffs and landings.

“They’re spaced further apart then they would otherwise be normally, which leads to longer waiting periods,” he said.

“That has a cascading effect through the schedule throughout the day and leads to delays.”

Early morning flights were the worst affected with the fog lifting by 10am, allowing runway operations to return to normal.

Fog has been blamed for a raft of cancellations at Melbourne Airport on Tuesday. Picture: X

Wednesday’s forecast for Melbourne indicated Tullamarine should be spared a third day of fog-related issues with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting partly cloud conditions with the high chance of showers.

In its October report, Airservices Australia noted weather was the “main driver” of ground delays on the east coast.

Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics data showed that in October, Melbourne Airport landed 70.2 per cent of flights on time, and 73.1 per cent of departures took off within 15 minutes of schedule.