Airport Council rankings in service quality : Vizag airport gets 112th rank

Visakhapatnam: The Visakhapatnam airport improved its rank to 112th in Airport Service Quality (ASQ) for Q-2 in the present fiscal.

The ASQ ratio is increased from 4.15 per cent to 4.36 per cent in Q-2 and achieved 112th rank in the world with respect to ASQ.

This is rated by Airport Council International. In Q-1 in the present fiscal, the Visakhapatnam airport was at 173rd rank.

In the recent times, the aircraft parking area has been expanded to land eight aircraft to 16.

Now the airport is facilitating to land 16 aircraft at a time. With the introduction of the number of flights to almost all the cities in the country, the passenger growth rate also increased.

During 2016-17, a total of 2.33 million passengers travelled from this airport and it was 2.48 million in 2017-18.

During the past four years, the airport has taken up several development works, including passenger amenities on international standards.

The state government developed the front elevation with beautiful landscaping works.

Not only passenger facilities, but also the airport has taken up several works to the visitors who arrive at the airport to welcome or send-off.

The canopy work at the entrance of the terminal building to protect the visitors also sanctioned and works will be started soon.

Meanwhile, the government also sanctioned terminal building expansion to double the floor area.

The linear expansion of 75 metres on either side of the terminal building would increase plinth area by 9,850 square metres at an estimated cost of Rs 53.46 crore and the work also commenced recently.

The efforts of Andhra Pradesh Air Travellers Association (APATA), Trade, Commerce and other agencies strongly opposed the Indian Navy’s restrictions on the civil aircraft recently.

The airline agencies not released the winter flight schedule from Visakhapatnam. However, after the Indian Navy’s lfited the curb on the civilian aircraft, the airline agencies announced their winter schedule approved by the DGCA.

APATA is glad regarding the rank given to the Vizag airport with respect to ASQ and also very happy regarding the increased frequency between Bengaluru and Vizag, which would be more convenient to the IT professionals and help the development of industries in Vizag, said O Naresh Kumar, vice-president, APATA.

This will be a boon to the Visakhapatnam industry and to the tourism sector, and the approval of the winter schedule by the DGCA would help a lot in improving the air services to Vizag airport.

The Mumbai and Delhi late night flight connectivity would be helpful more to the passengers to connect the international flights, said DS Varma and Dr Kumar Raju of APATA.