Direct flights between Malaysia,temple city may become reality

Tirupati: Will the Tirupati Airport fulfil the dreams of international passengers soon by getting flights from abroad? If the efforts by some private players to operate services to Malaysia go in the right direction it would become a reality.

A group of representatives from Skylet Logistics company, Malaysia have met the Tirupati Airport officials on Tuesday to explore the possibilities of running a flight service to their country.

Tirupati Airport is having an international terminal which was inaugurated in 2015 itself and the Central government has accorded international status to Tirupati Airport in June 2017. Customs, Immigration and Health wings were also set up at the facility and staff were also posted.

As the operations could not be initiated even after two years, slowly the staff at customs and immigration counters were sent back to their parent departments, it was learnt.

The Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu has laid foundation stone for the extension and strengthening of runway work in February this year which will enable B747-400, B777-300 ER type wide bodied aircrafts also land here from anywhere in the world. It has the night landing facility too.

Having all the required infrastructure, the airport's international status has still remained only on paper with no operator has come forward to operate services to any abroad destination.

Several travel operators were of the view that there will be regular traffic between Tirupati and Malaysia by providing connectivity. Both Malaysia and Gulf countries are the potential destinations and get the required traffic as most of passengers from this region are relying on other airports like Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, said a travel agent.

The officials have been saying that air operators have to show interest and approach Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for slots so that it can consult the Airport Authority of India (AAI). Though some efforts were put by Air Asia but there was no result.

In a significant development, representatives of Skylet Logistics during their visit to Tirupati and Tirumala have evinced keen interest in operating services to that country as they see much demand in that route.

The representatives have said that they met the Airport Director S Suresh to take stock of various aspects and facilities available here. They want to make a tie-up with some airlines to operate services and they were advised to approach the regulatory

authorities.

Presently, flights are running between Tiruchirapalli and Kuala Lumpur which can be extended up to Tirupati. They will also explore the possibilities to run direct services between Tirupati and Kuala Lumpur also by studying from passenger traffic angle.

Former TTD Trust Board member OV Ramana, who accompanied the Malaysian team, said that the proposal will be further expedited soon and a significant development can be witnessed in the next couple of months.

They will visit Tirupati again in the first week of August after discussing with the air operators in Malaysia and government sources. They will also have a dialogue with the government here to know the possibilities of getting viability gap funding or any other incentives.

In any case, they want to operate the services by the time of Lord Balaji's Brahmotsavams in September. Dr Kamaleswaran, Dr Rajeswaran, Dr Raja Vijayan and others were part of the visiting team.