Rajamahendravaram: Bright days are ahead of the airport at Madhurapudi near Rajamahendravaram. According to airport director M Raj Kishore, the runway expansion works are expected to be complete by end of December. The runway, if expanded, will allow landing of big flights. The existing 5,000 feet runway will be expanded to 10,500 feet to felicitate A 321 and Boeing 737-900 flights, if the project is completed. The footfall of air passengers is steadily on the rise with 2.61 lakh in 2016-17 over 1.08 lakh in 2012-13. At present Jet Airways, Spice Jet and True Jet are operating flights to Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. New airliners are reportedly showing interest to operate their services from the airport connecting major cities across the country. The state government has given 857 acres of land to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to facilitate the runway expansion. The runway is presently located in 389 acres of land, which is said to be quite inadequate for landing of big aircrafts. The expansion programme was initiated with a cost of Rs 185 crore by AAI. Sources said Indigo Airways representatives recently visited the airport and enquired about the existing facilities for running their services from Rajamahendravaram connecting all the major metros such as New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai etc. There is a lot of scope for cargo services also because of the airport enjoying good connectivity with rail, road and inland waterways, said Rajkishore. At present two ports in Kakinada are handling the cargo to various places across the world and the airport is expected to handle cargo services also after expansion of runway. Agro-based products, Aqua, Coconut, Fertilizers, paper etc will be the main cargo to be handled at the airport.Read More...