The Indian Navy officials have come to a decision to reduce the time restrictions at the Visakhapatnam Airport for Naval engagements. Earlier, the proposed time restrictions have been 5 hours per day and the Navy, now, has agreed to reduce them to 3 hours on weekdays.
In a meeting with Chief Minister of AP, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Eastern Naval Command Chief has assured that mixed operations for civil and military flights can be carried out between 7 pm and 9 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The dedicated time slots for Indian Navy alone would be in the morning from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm from Monday to Friday.
During the mixed operations, no new civil flights would be allocated to journey.
AP Air Travellers’ Association (APATA) representative, O. Naresh Kumar, said, “Jet Airways has announced the operation of an evening flight to Delhi but withdrew it from its website after the Airport Consultative Committee meeting in Delhi. The airline operators have to announce their schedules six months in advance. The airline officials have confirmed the withdrawal of the flight in view of the uncertainty.”
“The airline agreed to operate an evening flight to Delhi following intense lobbying by our association for the last six months. The Jet Airways flight will come to Vizag from Mumbai at 8 p.m. and take-off to Delhi at 8.30 p.m. This is very convenient to passengers from Vizag, who wish to take onward international connections to various destinations,” he said.
Speaking to The Hindu, Visakhapatnam Airport Director, G. Prakash Reddy said, “The meeting had only asked airline operators to avoid new flights during the mixed slot in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Jet Airways agreed to reconsider their decision on our plea.”
“MP Kambhampati Haribabu agreed to convene another meet with the airline operators on July 7 to convince them on the issues at the airport,” he said.
APATA representative, D.S. Varma said, “The confusion on the restriction of flying hours is leading to chaos and pull out by some airline operators and others hesitating to start operations from Vizag. I hope that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s intervention and seeking the lifting of all restrictions on civilian flights will prevail.”
The time restrictions would come into effect from Nov 1.
Credits: The Hindu
Discussion about this post