Vijayawada-Singapore maiden flight on Dec 4

Vijayawada: Putting an end over speculation on Vijayawada-Singapore international flight services, the Andhra Pradesh government on Wednesday announced that Vijayawada-Singapore IndiGo flight will take off on December 4, 2018.

Principal secretary for energy, infrastructure and investment and CRDA Ajay Jain in a release on Wednesday announced the Vijayawada-Singapore flight would take off on December 4, instead of October 25 as announced earlier. The delay is owing to delay in getting approval to start the flight services.

IndiGo Airlines will deploy 180-seater flight Airbus A320 for bi-weekly services. Earlier, the state government intensified efforts to operate international flight from Vijayawada at the earliest and chose Singapore as the ideal destination because of the demand.

A tender process conducted by Andhra Pradesh Airports Development Corporation Limited (APADCL) wherein IndiGo Airlines was selected as the operator to provide flights between Vijayawada and Singapore. Earlier, it was decided to operate the flight on October 25, 2018 from Vijayawada.

However, disagreement between department of customs and Airports Authority of India, Vijayawada Airport, on expenditure and arrangement of infrastructure provisions for setting up of custom operations led to delay in receipt of regulatory approvals. After many weeks of deliberations, the formalities were completed.

The airline operator needs confirmation on approvals well in advance to schedule the aircraft on the said route considering change of “summer schedule” to the “winter schedule” i.e. starting from October 27, 2018.

Since the approvals were received later than expected, the airline operator may not be able to deploy aircraft as per the scheduled date of October 25. Now, all procedures have been completed and the first service will take off on December 4, said Ajay Jain.