Vijayawada: VVIPs flying in special aircraft can now land at the Vijayawada International Airport, which passed an ‘overshoot flight’ test. This means the President or the Prime Minister flying on the aircraft with the designated call sign ‘Air India One’ or in other large aircraft can land in the airport.
A Boeing 777 aircraft recently carried out the ‘overshoot flight’ successfully to test the technical viability and functioning of instrumentation for landing and take-off, on the extended 3,360-metre runway at the Vijayawada airport.
The Boeing 777 which arrived from the Indira Gandhi International Airport at Delhi, flew very low at the Vijayawada airport runway as if it was going to land, but continued its flight after checking the functioning of technicalities involved in landing and take off.
The Airports Authority of India recently extended the Vijayawada airport runway to 3,360 metres from the 2,286 meters, extending it by 1,074 metre to facilitate landing and take-off of large aircraft.
Vijayawada airport authorities say that following successful conduct of ‘overshoot flight’, they are ready to facilitate operation of large aircraft carrying VVIPs and passengers.
The airport facilitates arrival and departure of nine flights each, per day to destinations like Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi in addition to operation of flights to the Gulf region.
Vijayawada International Airport director G. Madhusudhana Rao said, “Given the vast potential for international travel by the passengers from the city, we have developed the airport for operation of large aircrafts.”
