ANANTAPUR: Flight operations at Kadapa airport will soon resume with the launching of Trujet Airways. Previously known as Turbo Megha Airways, Trujet, which is headquartered in Hyderabad, is scheduled to start operations from Kadapa to Vijayawada, Hyderabad and Tirupati next week.
The airport was inaugurated a year ago, but the operation of flights was stopped four months ago because of poor response. Bengaluru based airlines stopped operating due to poor occupancy rate of passengers bound for Hyderabad and Bengaluru and the airport remained non-operational.
The state government had persuaded the airline companies to commence services from Kadapa airport, with Trujet Airways coming forward to run flights between Kadapa Vijayawada on April 5 and between Kadapa Hyderabad and Tirupati from April 8, sources said.
Flights will be operated four days a week between Kadapa Vijayawada and three days a week between Tirupati and Hyderabad from Kadapa airport. The airport, spread over 669.5 acres and upgraded at a cost of Rs 42 crore, was inaugurated in June 2015 by civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju and Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The terminal has a capacity to handle 100 peak-hour passengers at a time and the apron can accommodate 3 ATR-72 type of aircraft. The airport, constructed in 1953, initially had a 3,500 ft (1,067 m) runway.
In the 1980s, Vayudoot operated services to Kadapa from Hyderabad. In 2009, a new 6,562 ft × 150 ft (2,000 m × 46 m) runway was completed under the Build, Operate and Transfer basis at a cost of Rs 21 crore. A 11 km long compound wall was constructed at an outlay of Rs 24 crore. In the second phase, an Air Traffic Control (ATC) building, passenger terminal, parking bays and internal roads were built at a cost of Rs 13 crore.
