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...
