Visakhapatnam: Air traffic likely to go up in Visakha

Visakhapatnam : As Visakhapatnam is set to become the executive capital of the state, efforts are on to increase flight services from the city to other metro cities.

Currently, the flight services operating via Visakhapatnam register 80 to 90 per cent occupancy, including the ones flying to Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata.

However, keeping the traffic flow which is expected to go up drastically in future in view, more flight services are required for the travellers.

At present, 25 to 30 flights are operating via Visakhapatnam to various destinations. With Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy expected to shift to the port city from Dasara, VVIPs, VIPs and government officials’ movement are going to be multiplied. Keeping this in view, the members of Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) and Andhra Pradesh Air Travellers Association brought the need to increase the flight services to the notice of airport director S Raja Reddy. Along with Visakhapatnam MP and committee chairman M V V Satyanarayana, AAC representatives, including O Naresh Kumar, D S Varma, K Narasinga Rao along with G Sreenu Babu appealed to the director to improve the global ASQ Q2 ranking from the present 66 to top 30 global ranking. They underlined the need to work out a detailed plan for the same.

Also, they requested adding of more flights for the destinations that register 90 per cent occupancy. In addition, the committee suggested to the airport director to forward a letter to the ministry for the introduction of flights to Varanasi, Dubai and Malaysia, given their growing demand among the travellers.

The emphasis was laid on commencing prepaid taxi service in 10 days. Measures towards this have been taken by DCP Anand Reddy. Need for a detailed action plan was stressed for the expansion of airport terminal building, modernisation of cargo handling services, additional slots for flight operation, among others.