Visakhapatnam: Night flight service to remain suspended during peak season

Visakhapatnam: The key leaders of YSRCP keep reiterating that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will administer from Visakhapatnam from October onwards. On the other hand, runway resurface works at Visakhapatnam Airport are scheduled to commence from November 23. In connection with this, night flight services to the port city will be completely suspended for the next four months. As steps are accelerated towards the Chief Minister’s administration from Visakhapatnam in a couple of months from now, VVIP movement in the smart city is expected to grow very high. However, experts express concern over the shortage of flight services and air connectivity owing to runway resurface works. Keeping the footfall and VVIP movement in view, Andhra Pradesh Air Travellers Association (APATA) representatives forwarded a letter to the Minister for Civil Aviation. But, the Indian Navy under whose control the Air Traffic Control is yet to respond to the request made. This has increased tension among the air passengers. The Commanding Officer, INS Dega, recently informed the Director of Visakhapatnam Airport that the main runway, which is also utilised for domestic flights, is scheduled to undergo resurfacing works from November 23 to March 24th next. As a result, the runway is closed for night operations from 9 pm to 8 am on a daily basis. Due to 11-hour-long closure of the runway, about 10 to12 flights, including an international flight operation of Scoot airline service to Singapore will be impacted. Also, the closure timings will disrupt air services to Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Pune. Normally, the runway in the Vishakhapatnam Airport is resurfaced once in 10 years. Earlier, the resurfacing works were carried out in 2009. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, the same was not undertaken till date. The impact on operations in a day will lead to cutting off of air connectivity to many places from Visakhapatnam, causing inconvenience to many national and international passengers. The forthcoming winter season is a peak period for tourists and also a prime period for weddings and festivals, during which there would be a huge demand for air travel. Therefore, the decision of naval authorities would adversely affect the growth of air travel as well as the economy of Andhra Pradesh, said Andhra Pradesh Air Travellers Association (APATA) president K Kumar Raja and vice presidents DS Varma and O Naresh Kumar. After N5 taxi track came into operation, there is a potential increase of capacity for flight operations from 10 to 15 movements per hour and the same need to be allotted to civil flights without any reduction in slots for military movement, they appealed. Meanwhile, BJP state president and former Union minister Daggubati Puradeswari and Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao brought the issue to the notice of Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to kindly consider the matter favorably to reschedule the restricted hours from 11 pm to 5.30 am next day.