By SNV Sudhir
They are of the opinion that the present airport be upgraded
to the international standards, which involves no much money, and the land is
also abundantly available in and around to improve the present runway and
create some more for the land of larger aircraft.
Whereas, for a new airport lot of money has to be spent and
take up the daunting the task of land acquisition of at least 5,000 acres.
Instead, Navy’s air station INS Dega shifted to the Naval Alternative
Operations Base (NAOB) coming up near Ramabilli-Nakkapalli.
Vizag airport is also
being used by Indian Navy for its air operations and all the operations are
controlled by Eastern naval Command (ENC). After a lot of hue and cry by the
locals on the Navy operating extended houts from 8 am to 11pm only three days a
week for lack of man power, recently, the airport is now opened for 24/7
operations.
Now that the Vizag airport is open 24x7, many international
airlines are interested in connecting Vizag to their circuit. Already Air India operates flight to Dubai and
Silk Airways to Singapore thrice
a week. Both international flights reached the target of 70 percent load
factor. Air Arabia also evinced interest in launching it’s service from here to Sharjah
and other Gulf countries.
“ A fully green field
airport takes lot of time, money and land. But we have a readymade airport in
front of us which can be upgraded to international standards within no time by
just spending a few hundreds of crores. Besides, there is also land abundantly
available in and around the present airport for expansion. Many international
airlines have lined up their proposals to introduce air services connecting
many international destinations,” said Vizag airport committee member and Vizag
Development Council (VDC), convenor, O Naresh Kumar.
There is also popular demand to shift Navy’s INS Dega air
station to NAOB where a few thousands of acres of land was allotted to Indian
Navy by the state government.
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