The ever-booming Vijayawada airport will witness another game-changing development in passenger traffic and improved connectivity with other cities.
According to Vijayawada International Airport Director G. Madhusudhana Rao, the IndiGo airlines which recently kicked off its operations in the city has called for making the city airport a base for four of its larger fleet.
“IndiGo has recently made a request to have a base for four Airbus A320 aircraft. It wants to station the four 180-seater aircraft from September 1 and schedule its services accordingly. We have processed the request and forwarded it to the higher office,” Mr. Rao told The Hindu .
“This is a boost to not only the airport but also the passengers. Once the operations begin, the airline operates four services to four destinations every morning and also return flights in the night,” he said.
The city airport has 16 parking bays of which six were developed recently due to the increasing traffic.
However, it doesn’t have the Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO) facility, where the stationed aircraft could get a complete overhaul before leaving for the first destination in a day.
Jobs for locals
“At present MRO is not required. The maintenance will be taken care of by the airline staff,” Mr. Rao said.
“This is also an opportunity for engineers and other qualified persons from this region. Many jobs will be created.” Earlier, city-based airline Air Costa had the city airport as its base.
Historic achievement
The passenger and aircraft traffic has been on the rise since the bifurcation but only this year, the airport set a record joining the top league airports in the country.
For the first time, it crossed the one lakh mark in passenger traffic in May. More than 1.08 lakh flyers used the airport against 51,000 in May, 2017, said Mr. Rao. “This is an increase of 108% passenger traffic. In fact the passenger count had been close to 1 lakh since March when IndiGo had launched 10 services to various destinations. In the corresponding months last year, the count was only a little about half lakh,” Mr. Rao added.
Also, the airport handled 1,870 aircraft movements in May, 2018 against 974 in May 2017.
On an average, it handles 60 movements and 54 scheduled movements every day.
