Vizag airport night flight shutdown nears, stakeholders raise alarm

Visakhapatnam: The decision to restrict flights at night-time to enable authorities to undertake resurfacing work at the runway of Visakhapatnam International Airport has forced the Scoot Airlines to change its time of departure and arrival for its flight between the City of Destiny and Singapore.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) maintains the airport as a civil enclave on INS Dega-an airfield of the Indian Navy used for operational convenience of the Eastern Naval Command headquartered here.

The airport has a night-landing facility with a separate terminal recently built for use by international travellers at a cost of Rs 60 crore. Another terminal building is under proposal with an investment of Rs 240 crore. Post-Covid, though flight to Singapore was revived, other airlines including IndiGo, AirAsia, VietJet Air, Sri Lankan Airlines and Thai Airways at various points of time have shown interest to operate flights to Colombo, Dubai, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur. It is proposed to shutdown the airport for domestic flights once Bhogapuram International Airport, under construction by GMR Group at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore for the first phase, gets ready.

As announced earlier, Visakhapatnam Airport will be closed for flights as the authorities want to prohibit flight operation from 9 pm to 8 am from November 15, 2023 to April 1, 2024 to undertake the resurfacing work of the runway. A senior official of the AAI told Bizz Buzz that the resurfacing work at Visakhapatnam was long due necessitating taking it up now.

Despite serious concerns expressed by the users, travel operators and political leaders including BJP State president Daggubati Purandeswari, YSRCP MP MVV Satyanarayana and BJP national spokesman and Rajya Sabha member GVL Narasimha Rao, there is no response yet to revise the timings and reduce the duration of ‘no night flight’ decision by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Civil Aviation. Pressure from various counters is mounting up on the Central authorities to review the decision on shutdown and instead, to consider latest technologies to expedite the resurfacing work of the runway in a short time. Both Satyanarayana and Narasimha Rao in separate representations, informed the Ministry of Defence that advances in technology were followed for resurfacing work at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad and few other airports. “Military Engineering Services (MES) has completed the resurfacing of a portion of the runway at the Pune Airport in record time of 14 days, whereas earlier the same work had taken 28-35 days previously and this helped the flight operations to resume early,” Narasimha Rao informed the Defence Minister in a letter.

The decision to shutdown the airport came as a big blow at a time when passenger movement is going up after the decision of the State Government to make Visakhapatnam the seat of administration as part of a decision. Incidentally, the airport saw an increase in number of domestic passengers from 7.54 lakh in 2022 to 10.13 lakh in 2023 and international passengers went up marginally from 20,084 during the first four months of current financial year.

The number of check-in counters is also being increased from 30 to 40 to cater to the increasing demand, according to the sources in the airport. “We expect passenger-friendly initiatives to increase the footfall. Hence, our appeal to the authorities to reduce the duration of resurfacing work and revise the time in consultation with the stakeholders should be considered,” said K Vijay Mohan, Member, Airport Advisory Committee and Chairman, Tourism Committee, AP Chambers of Commerce & Industry Federation.