At DEL, in addition to fog, the CAT-III system failed. I believe it is in excellent working condition whenever it is not needed!

The OP's situation was no doubt nightmarish, but you don't miss flights and expect that alternatives will just fall into place. A refundable backup res on a later UDR-DEL flight would have helped, and I think it was suggested earlier in this thread.

None of the rest is surprising to those of us who have been traveling to India for many years. It's too bad the OP didn't understand that India is not a country that operates like clockwork, and also that Indians hate to discourage anyone, and their time estimates are generally overly optimistic.

Of course, given the initial missed flight, pulling off something like this might have been difficult in any country---fog in Delhi disrupts flights nationwide. Try doing something analogous in the US when there is a snowstorm along the eastern seaboard as there was some days ago.

I flew CCU-DEL on 9W the evening of Jan. 3 and DEL-ORD on AA early am Jan. 4. After seeing the headlines the previous couple of days I was very worried, but there was no substantial fog and everything went perfectly smoothly. We arrived in Chicago so early this morning that immigration/customs was not open yet; we had to wait until 5am.