VIJAYAWADA: Due to poor occupancy, Air India has cancelled its weekly flight to Muscat from Vijayawada International Airport scheduled to start this month.As per the schedule, the Air India has announced to operate Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Muscat flight, that will take off from Vijayawada on Tuesdays at noon.
“Initially, the weekly flight services to Muscat should have operated from July 20 (Tuesday). However due to poor occupancy, the weekly flights to Muscat were cancelled on July 20 and 27. Besides that, Covid-19 restrictions are still being imposed in the Gulf countries and permissions were given for travel for those settled in the Gulf or having visa. This affected the passenger occupancy between Vijayawada and Muscat,” director G Madhusudana Rao told TNIE.
“Though the advanced reservation for tickets to AI flights between Muscat and Vijayawada were online, the demand from passengers is poor. The AI has also announced to operate weekly services to Muscat from Vijayawada on August 3, 10, 17 and 24 (every Tuesday). The passenger capacity of one flight is 180 seats of which 30 to 40 per cent of the seats should be filled for operation of air services. However, a decision will be taken after considering the passenger occupancy issue,” Rao informed.
Meanwhile, the airport officials also maintained that Kuwait airline Jajeera Airways has expressed interest to operate services to Dubai and Kuwait from Vijayawada. A team of representatives from the airliner visited the terminal. Almost six months ago, the Jazeera Airways should have started it’s services to Dubai and Kuwait from Vijayawada, but the proposal did not materialise due to second Covid-19 wave. Once if the situation improves, the airline will commence it’s operations from Vijayawada, he said.The extended runway became operational on July 15. The runway will facilitate landing and take off of Boeing 737, 747 and Airbus 330.