Flight operations at Bhogapuram airport to begin on July 8

Visakhapatnam: The greenfield Visakhapatnam airport at Bhogapuram in Vizianagaram district will be inaugurated in the first week of July, with flights making their maiden landing and takeoff from July 8.

The airport was named after freedom fighter Alluri Sitara Rama Raju. It will be inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi. Officials are racing against time to make the arrangements, including security protocol for the VVIP visit.

Located about 50 km from Visakhapatnam, the greenfield airport was being developed on a public-private partnership (PPP) model by the GMR Group. The airport was designed to handle six million passengers per annum in the first phase, with scope for further scale-up.

The airport completed its trial and validation flight on Jan 4. Travellers with tickets from the existing Visakhapatnam airport for dates on or after July 8 must verify their flight departure points. The check-in counters for shifting airlines will be at Terminal-1, the Tours and Travel Agents Association of AP (TTAA) president Kanneganti Vijay Mohan said. ”We came through the Scoot Airlines alert that the flights from July 8 would be operated from Bhogapuram airport instead of Visakhapatnam airport,” he said.

Scoot Airlines sent messages to travel agents saying there was a change in the airport for Visakhapatnam flights. It announced that Scoot flights to and from Visakhapatnam would operate from Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport instead of the existing Visakhapatnam International Airport.