Visakhapatnam: An ATR aircraft of Air India will be stationed and will utilise the night parking facility from April 1 at Visakhapatnam Airport. Airport authorities said Air India has decided to connect Vizag with Vijayawada, Tirupati, Raipur and Bhubaneswar by stationing an ATR aircraft at the Visakhapatnam Airport. The flights to Bhubaneswar, Raipur and Tirupati will be available for six days in a week except on Wednesday.Airport officials said AI-9527 will start from Vizag at 6.30 am and reach Tirupati by 9 am via Vijayawada and return from Tirupati at 9.25 am to reach Vizag at 11.55 am on six days of the week except Wednesday.AI-9533 will depart from Vizag at 12.40 pm to reach Bhubaneswar at 2.05 pm and return from Bhubaneswar at 2.30 pm and reach Vizag at 3.55 pm on six days of the week except Wednesday.Subsequently, AI-9535 will leave from Vizag at 4.35 pm to reach Raipur at 6 pm and return from Raipur at 6.25 pm to reach Vizag at 8 pm on six days of the week except Wednesday.On Wednesday, flight AI-9537 will leave from Vizag at 10.45 am to reach Hyderabad at 1.10 pm via Vijayawada and return from Hyderabad at 2.10 pm to reach Vizag at 4.35 pm.Speaking to TOI, airport director Vinod Kumar Sharma said stationing an aircraft at Vizag Airport would give the airline the advantage of starting early morning flights to different locations. He also said the airport has 8 parking bays at present which can be used by other airlines to station their aircraft in Vizag. By May, work on six additional parking bays will also be completed, he said. A couple of other airlines have also held preliminary discussions to station their aircraft at Visakhapatnam Airport.Airline enthusiast Gunadeep Narendrapuram said, "For the first time, Air India will be offering two-way flights between Raipur and Vizag and this will provide better connectivity between AP and Chhattisgarh. Passenger traffic details from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation indicate that the number of passengers has increased rapidly during the last one year. While in January 2016, only around 390 passengers travelled on the Vizag-Raipur route, it increased to 733 in January 2017. This will ease travel between these two cities. Also, the new routes will help pilgrims from north coastal AP travelling to Tirupati. The travel time will be just about two-and-half hours as against the existing train time, which takes around 12 hours." With Visakhapatnam Airport handling nearly 1.9 million passengers between April 2016 and January 2017, airport sources said more number of airlines may station their aircraft at Vizag to cater to the growing traffic.

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