Vijayawada-Sharjah flight services resume

Vijayawada: It was a delightful and memorable journey for K Sravani, who boarded the international flight at Gannavaram to travel to Sharjah. She hails from West Godavari and boarded the flight on the first day of the flight services.

Like Sravani, 121 other passengers left for Sharjah by Air India Express flights as the international flight services resumed from Gannavaram airport on Monday.

The inaugural flight landed at the Gannavaram airport from Sharjah with 52 passengers at 4.35 pm. The same flight took off at 6.35 pm with the 122 passengers. There will be two flights a week between Vijayawada and Sharjah.

International flight services have resumed from the Gannavaram airport after a gap of three years. Earlier, Indigo operated services between Gannavaram and Singapore. But later they stopped the services. Many NRIs, Telugu people living in Coastal districts of Krishna, Guntur, West Godavari and Prakasam and trade bodies like Andhra Pradesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry had been requesting for commencement of the international flights from Vijayawada.

One of the travellers, Kankipati Sravani from Penumantra mandal of West Godavari district told The Hans India that she was overjoyed to board the flight at Vijayawada. Earlier, they used to go to Hyderabad or Chennai to board international flights to travel to the Gulf or other countries.

Divya from Eluru district said she was very happy to board the flight at Gannavaram. She suggested that Air India should operate flights daily instead of twice a week.

International services were re-launched following the efforts made by Machilipatnam MP Vallabhaneni Balasoury and Vijayawada MP Kesineni Nani.

Airport director Lakshmikanth Reddy and the two MPs handed over the boarding pass to the passengers at the Airport.

Both MPs expressed happiness with resuming international flight services from Gannavaram. They said efforts were also on to see that air services to Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and other eastern countries also start from Gannavaram. Kesineni Nani said former CM Chandrababu Naidu took initiative to develop the airport.