IndiGo airline plans to share important weather data with IMD

IndiGo on Tuesday announced that it has incorporated a plan for its pilots to report high-level wind and temperatures at different stages of a flight to India Meteorological Department.

New Delhi: India's largest airline IndiGo on Tuesday announced that its aircraft will provide crucial data on wind, humidity and temperature during all flight operations to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) to help it make accurate weather predictions.

"The data, which is imperative for accurate predictions of weather, has been unavailable to the Indian Meteorological Department since a majority of flights are out of operations due to the nationwide lockdown, coupled with staff constraints," said the airline in a statement.

IndiGo said that it has incorporated a plan for its pilots to report high-level wind and temperatures at different stages of a flight as desired by IMD across all flight operations. "The pilot reports will capture and share observations at cruising altitude midway of the destination, just before the start of the descent, near FL100, near FL050 and position to coordinate within 2 hours of observation in order to support the Wx forecast model," said IndiGo.

“In view of the current situation, we have decided to take a step forward to assist the IMD department, which is relentlessly working to provide an accurate weather forecast for the aviation industry as well as agricultural and fisheries sector amongst many others in the country," said Capt. Ashim Mittra, Sr. Vice President, Flight Operations, IndiGo.

"As part of this initiative, we have made pilot reporting compulsory on our flight operations. We will ensure to share observations from every flight within two hours to the IMD headquarters so that they can use this data for the benefit of the nation," he added.

All domestic and international commercial passenger flights in India have been suspended ever since the country imposed a 21-day lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

However, cargo flight, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are allowed to operate during the lockdown.