Vellore-Tirupati air link on the cards

Speaking to DTNext, Airports Authority of India (AAI) Regional Executive Director KJ Sreekumar said, “A team of officials led by the Centre’s Civil Aviation Secretary RN Choubey will visit Chennai next week to have a round of talks with State government officials on acquiring additional land to expand runways for seven AAI airports in the state, including Vellore, Coimbatore, Thoothukudi, Tiruchy, Madurai, Salem and Puducherry.” 

“Vellore’s World War II aerodrome with its 1,000 metre runway can accommodate only nine-seater aircraft,” Sreekumar said, adding, “TrueJet currently does not have such aircraft, but we feel that they will acquire it to start operations. The Vellore runway has also to be lengthened to accommodate bigger aircraft.” 

A functional airport has long been Vellore’s dream due to the location of Christian Medical college, VIT University and the newer Golden Temple at Sripuram all of which are well-known. explaining this, VITU Chancellor G Viswanathan said, “We initially approached Pawan Hans, the civil aviation’s helicopter wing to operate services between Vellore and Chennai. Their officials visited the location and accepted to operate provided we put up buildings on the old airport premises. However, the talks failed since we could not guarantee a fixed number of passengers daily which they demanded.”