ATAI to showcase Vizag as best destination

Air Travellers Association of India is organising a road show in Chennai in September

The Air Travellers Association of India (ATAI) has proposed to organise a road show at Chennai during the second week of September to showcase the merits of coastal Andhra Pradesh with particular reference to Visakhapatnam for greater air connectivity.

Domestic as well as international airlines, hoteliers, tour operators and others are expected to take part in the road show.

Air traffic from the Visakhapatnam airport increased by 25 per cent during the financial year ended March 31, 2006, and was expected to reach 100 per cent in 2007-08 once the expansion of the airport was completed, H S Suresh, general manager (projects), Airports Authority of India, told Business Standard.

As of now, the Visakhapatnam airport is connected to Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi via Raipur, and about 54 flights are operated in a week. In 2005-06, 5,876 flights were operated and about 2.5 lakh passengers travelled through the airport as compared to 4,539 flight services and about 2 lakh passengers in the previous year.

"In 2006-07, we are not expecting much growth both in flight services and the number of passengers from the Vizag airport but in 2007-08, we are anticipating huge growth," Suresh added.

As part of the Rs 300-crore Vizag airport expansion project, a 10,000-feet runway is being constructed. After completion of the work, wide-bodied aircraft can land in this airport round-the-clock from January 2007.

D Varada Reddy, president, ATAI, said that several airline firms were evincing interest to operate flights to Vizag and some international airways like Silk Air had already confirmed its readiness to operate direct flights from Vizag to Singapore after completion of the expansion works.

Keeping the industrial growth at Vizag in mind, several other international airways like Malaysian, SriLankan and Thai airlines too were showing interest to operate flights from Vizag, he added.

ATAI is expecting 10 flights a week on the Vizag-Kolkata-Vizag sector, 24 flights a week on the Vizag-Chennai-Vizag sector, 28 on the Vizag-Hyderabad-Vizag sector, 21 on the Vizag-Mumbai-Vizag sector and 14 flights a week on Vizag-Delhi-Vizag sector.

"This apart, we are expecting direct flights to Port Blair and Bangalore from Vizag very shortly," Reddy said.

ATAI has its chapters at Tiruchi, Madurai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Chennai, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Guwahati and Raipur.