Vijayawada: Passenger traffic to cross 1 mn soon

Vijayawada: Gannavaram Airport which is one of the fastest growing airports in the country is likely to cross one million passenger traffic mark soon with gradual increase of flight operations. At present, nearly 2,700 passengers are departing and arriving at the Gannavaram Airport. The passenger traffic is increasing and may cross 3,000 shortly.

After the bifurcation of the state in 2014, Gannavaram Airport became important for the state of Andhra Pradesh. Passenger traffic at the was only 2.30 lakh per year in 2014-15 but it increased to 11.90 lakh by 2018-19 as many services were operated to different parts of India.

Air connectivity increased to many cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Vizag, Chennai, Hyderabad and Tirupati. Besides, international flights were also operated between Vijayawada and Singapore.

However, the Covid pandemic badly affected the airport traffic and flight operations.

With Covid vanishing in the country, Gannavaram airport is getting busy with flight operations again, Airport director M Lakshmikanth Reddy told The Hans India that the passenger traffic is likely to cross one million per year very soon if the services continue at this pace. He said flight services are available to many important cities from Gannavaram and there is a possibility of expanding services to other cities too. He said Gannavaram Airport also became very important for cargo services because Andhra Pradesh is well known for aqua production and agriculture.

Air India commenced operations to Sharjah and the flights are operated twice a week. Besides, Vijayawada-Muscat services will be operated on every Saturday.

Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas and Machilipatnam MP V Balashouri are talking to Air India and other airlines to make them start services to countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand.

Andhra Chamber of Commerce and Industry president (elect) Potluri Bhaskar Rao said the chamber is requesting some airlines to operate services to Varanasi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata also. He said a large number of devotees visit Varanasi and traders go to Ahmedabad and Kolkata for business and other purposes.

Bhaskara Rao said Gannavaram Airport has potential to grow in the coming years and passenger traffic will increase considerably.