IndiGo has announced a daily flight from Visakhapatnam to Thiruvananthapuram via Chennai in its summer schedule with effect from March 29.
The flight will be useful for tourists and also people from Kerala travelling to their home state during the summer vacation. It will also be very convenient to the Ayyappa devotees visiting Sabarimala during the next season. Devotees can reach Sabarimala by road from Trivandrum. The outward flight will leave Vizag by 10.25 a.m. and the inward flight from Trivandrum will arrive here at 5.30 p.m. IndiGo will also operate a flight from Ahmedabad to Vizag via Hyderabad.
A couple of months ago a man was coming from Kharagpur to Vizag by the Howrah-Chennai Central Super Fast Special AC Express as there was no accommodation in other trains. The train, which by-passes the Visakhapatnam main station reaches Duvvada at 3.03 a.m.
It was pitch dark and one cannot see around properly as it was an AC compartment.
He woke up around 2.30 a.m. and found that the train had stopped at some place. The railway station was not visible but he figured out that the train was somewhere near Vizag. The coach attendant was taking a nap and when asked, he said: “The train has already crossed Vizianagaram some time ago and I think this must be Duvvada.” Believing his words, the passenger got down hastily to avoid the prospect of the train leaving. Luckily, he did not have much luggage and he walked along the track in the dark and managed to reach the main road. There someone told him that the Kothalavala Station was about half-a-kilometre away. The train had no stoppage at Kothavalasa and the attendant, who was napping, must have thought that it has reached Duvvada. Incidents like this can be avoided, when passengers utilise the passenger-friendly initiatives like ‘Wake up’ introduced by the railways recently. All that they have to do is to SMS 139 giving their PNR no. “Alert PNR No.” The passengers would receive an alert call on their mobile phone well in advance of the station, where they have to alight.
