Visakhapatnam airport is gearing up to handle more international flights. At present, the airport sees one or two international chartered flights weekly from Sri Lanka. These flights are connected to the Brandix apparel city here.
According to airport sources, United Arab Emirates’ Air Arabia is keen to operate regular flights between Sharjah and Vizag.
Silk Airways and Sri Lankan Airways are also studying the possibilities to operate international flights from here.
During the last financial year, the airport handled about 725,000 passengers, of which more than 15 per cent were overseas. “Vizag air passengers use Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai airports to catch international flights. If international flights operate from here, most of the passengers will go directly from this place,” said Varada Reddy, Air Users Association of India.
The airport has customs and immigration facilities and once more international flight operate from here, these facilities would be strengthened, he said.
“At present, daily 32 services operate from Vizag and we have direct flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Another six services will be added from August second week including daily direct flights to Bangalore and Tirupati,” he said.
In the first quarter of the current financial year, over 220,000 passengers used this airport and by end of this fiscal, this number is expected to cross 900,000.