KADAPA: The passenger traffic has increased at the Kadapa airport, thanks to the affordable airfare and connectivity to major cities. As a result, the airport authorities have set a target of attracting one lakh air passengers by March 31, 2019. Currently, six air services are being run and another flight would be operated from Kadapa to Bengaluru soon. The occupancy ratio has reached 90 per cent, encouraging the air operators to run more flights from Kadapa airport.
The UDAN Scheme, introduced by the Centre aims at providing air connectivity to all towns, helped increase passenger traffic at the Kadapa airport. Earlier, Vayudoot flights were run between Hyderabad and Kadapa from 1985 to 1989. However, the air services were stopped due to lack of passenger traffic. The then CM YS Rajasekhar Reddy developed Kadapa airport to promote industrial growth in the region. In 2007, the AP government signed a MoU with the Airport Authority of India to develop Kadapa airport at a cost of `60 crore.
As part of the agreement, the runway was expanded to 1,719 metres. CM N Chandrababu Naidu and the then Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju inaugurated the airport on June 7, 2015. Air operators started running ATR 72 between Kadapa and Bengaluru. In April 2016, TruJet started operating flights from Kadapa-Vijayawada. Unfortunately, the two air operators stopped services due to poor occupancy ratio.
However, PM Narendra Modi inaugurated the Tru- Jet service from Kadapa to Hyderabad via remote video link on April 27, 2017. Till March 31, 2018, over 40,000 air passengers travelled from Kadapa airport. The occupancy ratio has now increased to 90 percent. Due to this, the air operators evinced interest to run many services to various cities from Kadapa airport. The airport officials said the Odessa Airlines will start services between Kadapa- Bengaluru from August.