Night-landing from today at Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: For the first time in the six-decade history of the Visakhapatnam airport, night operation of commercial flights will begin from Sunday onwards with the flight of low cost carrier Spice Jet from New Delhi via. Hyderabad, making the first landing at 7.20 p.m. It will leave to Mumbai via. Hyderabad at 7.50 p.m.
Demand for allowing night operation and deployment of instrument landing system (ILS) to help flight navigation in poor visibility is the long pending one of the Vizagites as the night operation would help them to bargain for allowing 24 hours operation in the airport as also flights on international routes in the future.
Though the facilities for night operations were available as early as mid-2007 and in fact navy had been using the system for several months since now, the clearance for allowing commercial aircrafts in the night got delayed with the Defence Ministry due to shortage of naval personnel to man the air traffic control (ATC), which is under the control of the Navy.
30/03/08 J. Balaji/The Hindu

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Categories: Airports Mar 2008, New Mar 2008