There are adequate parking bays for the parking of Code ‘C’ and lower category (ATR) aircraft at Visakhapatnam International Airport and IndiGo airlines should consider parking at least one of its aircraft to facilitate late night arrivals into Visakhapatnam and early morning departures from the city, opines Visakhapatnam MP M.V.V. Satyanarayana.
In a letter to Manish Puri, Vice-President (Sales) of IndiGo, Mr. Satyanarayana noted that the Navy operates the ATC 24 X 7 at Vizag Airport. A new apron, comprising six additional parking bays, was commissioned in August, 2021, taking the total parking bays at Vizag to 16. This places the Vizag airport in a comfortable position as far as overnight parking of a few aircraft.
He said that since there were five IndiGo flight arrivals and five departures from various destinations like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai and Tirupati between 6.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. at Vizag airport and four scheduled flight arrivals and four scheduled departures to/from Vizag to Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., IndiGo could consider parking of at least one ATR and one AB 320 flight by shifting them either from Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai or Delhi to Visakhapatnam to facilitate late night arrivals in Visakhapatnam and to start base flights to any of the destinations from Visakhapatnam in the early morning. The night parking would enable operation of early morning flight to Vijayawada from Vizag.
‘Rename train as Waltair Express’
In a separate letter to Divisional Railway Manager Anup Satpathy on Monday, Mr. Satyanarayana while thanking the DRM and his team on their initiative in converting the conventional rake of 12861/62 Kachiguda Express into LHB rake, sought naming of the 12861/62 as ‘Waltair Express’, which is another name for Visakhapatnam during the British era, and also represents the historic Waltair Division. This was also the cherished dream of the passengers of Visakhapatnam region, he said.
