A modern terminal building, a 10,000-foot runway, customs and immigration facilities, night landing facilities, impressive growth in traffic, interest evinced by international airline operators… Visakhapatnam airport has all these advantages but 24-hour operations continue to elude the airport.
Round-the-clock operation is a pre-requisite for international airline operators to launch direct flights. It's more than two years now that most of these facilities were created. The different departments concerned have been passing the buck and blaming one another for the delay in introducing 24-hour operations.
People's representatives seem to be content ‘discussing' the matter with the officials concerned, but the latter have not initiated any action so far. A few airline operators had made surveys and were buoyed by the positive feedback from airline passengers.
They concluded that the airport has tremendous potential and expressed their intention to operate direct flights to Singapore and Dubai from Visakhapatnam.
The Indian Navy, which mans the Air Traffic Control (ATC), had declared in the past that it is ready for 24-hour operations, provided the airline operators come up with a written consent. Air Traffic Association (India) president D. Varada Reddy says that airline operators could plan their operations only after introduction of 24-hour operations. The million dollar question is ‘who is responsible for the undue delay in the launching of 24-hour operations?' “Vested interests are against introduction of direct flights to international destinations from Visakhapatnam as that would hit the business at their airports,” according to reliable sources. In the absence of direct flights, passengers from the city are being forced to waste a day during their stopover in Chennai, Hyderabad or Kolkata to catch a connecting flight. Apart from international travellers, even passengers who travel on business to the metro cities in the country prefer to return by the night flights after completing their work instead of wasting time and money for the overnight stay.
Once the watch hours are extended, airline operators who wish to park their flights can also use the six parking bays in Visakhapatnam airport and leave the next morning. “Principal Secretary (Investment and infrastructure) Sudheer Bhattacharjee is evincing keen interest in the development of the airport. A meeting will soon be held in Hyderabad to project Vizag as an international destination. We have sought extension of the Dubai-Hyderabad Jet Airways flight to Visakhapatnam,” Airport Director K. Srinivasa Rao told The Hindu when asked about the status of international operations.
