The Visakhapatnam airport marked its ultimate day of business operations on Sunday (August 16, 2026). The final scheduled flight, IndiGo’s 10.45 p.m. service to New Delhi, flight 6E 2018, took with it the civil run of an airfield that has served the city since the Second World War.
At 12.01 a.m. on Monday (August 17, 2026), the Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram comes into fee under two gazette notifications the Ministry of Civil Aviation issued last month, Airport Director N. Purushottam stated. One brings the brand new airport into service; the opposite ends scheduled business operations on the civil enclave at INS Dega for 30 years, permitting exceptions for the armed forces, nationwide emergencies and plane carrying dignitaries. The IATA code VTZ passes to Bhogapuram on the similar minute. Non-scheduled civil flights and all naval flying proceed at INS Dega, and since July 9 the Navy has been the only real controlling authority for the restructured Visakhapatnam airspace.
The Airports Authority of India thanked the Indian Navy for internet hosting civil operations at INS Dega, a partnership that continues for non-scheduled flights, and the CISF, BCAS, DGCA, Customs, Immigration, airways and floor handlers.
The 30-year condition dates to January 2016, when the Centre gave website clearance for Bhogapuram. The ceiling on civil actions at a naval subject, the place airways flew inside slots the Navy allotted, was the core purpose the State pursued a greenfield airport.
A wartime airstrip
The airfield at Buchirajapalem, within the valley behind the port, was arrange in 1941 by the Royal Air Drive. On April 1, 1942, the Indian Air Drive’s No. 104 Normal Reconnaissance Squadron was raised there when Flight Lieutenant David Small and Pilot Officer Maurice Barker flew in two Westland Wapiti biplanes from Dum Dum.
5 days later, plane from the Japanese provider Ryujo bombed Vizagapatam and Cocanada, now Kakinada. The airfield and its two Wapitis weren’t hit. Eight port workers died when a bomb burst close to a pipe wherein that they had taken shelter; a plaque on the Visakha Museum carries their names.
John Castellas, whose household roots are within the metropolis and who now lives in Melbourne, has written the airfield’s early historical past and informed The Hindu what the primary patrol was like, quoting from Wing Commander W. Russell’s Forgotten Skies. “Squadron Chief David Small, having simply fashioned his flight at Dum Dum, arrived on 1st April with two Wapitis on the subject within the valley behind the small port of Vizagapatam, midway up the east coast of India. He had no telephone to the Naval Officer in cost on the port, no hangars, and as but no airman. On sixth April, after combating all these preliminary difficulties, he went out on his first patrol. He determined to navigate, as there have been no wi-fi operators or navigators on the spot, so the younger Indian Pilot Officer Maurice Barker, whose house is at Agra, flew the plane. He seemed nearer and witnessed the unbelievable sight of an plane provider, a number of cruisers and destroyers belching hearth at a service provider’s vessel, like hounds round a fox at bay.”
Small, by then a Squadron Chief, didn’t return from a Hudson patrol over the Bay of Bengal in early 1943. Barker rose to Air Marshal, the primary Anglo-Indian to carry that rank, and retired in 1976. Later within the conflict the sphere staged Dakotas for paratroop drops over Burma; wartime collections within the city purchased the RAF a Spitfire named Vizagputum II and a Wellington bomber named Vizagapatam.
Boys play soccer on the garden outdoors Visakhapatnam airport on Sunday (August 16, 2026), the final day of business flights on the airport. From Monday, scheduled companies transfer to Bhogapuram and this floor is closed to the general public.
| Picture Credit score:
Okay.R. Deepak
The Navy’s subject
Civil flights started in 1954. Naval aviation arrived on December 23, 1972, when 321 Flight, a Chetak helicopter unit, was raised at INS Circars, and on March 12, 1986 the airfield handed from the Nationwide Airports Authority to the Navy. On October 21, 1991, Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, then Chief of the Naval Employees, commissioned it as INS Dega, the title being the Telugu phrase for a big fowl of the eagle household. At commissioning, the one fixed-wing civil flying was Vayudoot’s Dornier service. From then on the Airports Authority of India ran the civil enclave on a runway, and below air site visitors management, that belonged to the Navy.
The flooded lounge and runway at Visakhapatnam airport on October 16, 2005, after water was launched from the Meghadrigedda reservoir following heavy rain. The airport stayed shut for greater than 10 days. File
| Picture Credit score:
Okay.R. Deepak
INS Dega grew to become the Jap Naval Command’s foremost air station: the Kamov Ka-28 anti-submarine squadron INAS 333 in 2000; the Dornier squadron INAS 311 and the Sea King squadron INAS 350 in 2009; INAS 551 with Hawk trainers in 2014; and INAS 324, the primary naval Superior Mild Helicopter squadron on the east coast, in 2022. In 2017 the de-inducted Tu-142M that now stands as a museum on Beach Road made its final landing here.
The civil facet grows
The civil turning level got here in 2007, when a brand new 10,000-ft runway changed the 6,000-ft strip and night time flying started. The current built-in terminal, constructed by the AAI at about ₹95 crore, opened to passengers on March 27, 2009 with 20 check-in counters and three aerobridges. The Navy’s historical past data that civil site visitors grew greater than 50-fold between 1999 and 2009.
Worldwide standing got here on March 25, 2012, with Air India’s each day Dubai flight by way of Hyderabad. SilkAir opened Singapore in October 2017; Scoot, AirAsia and Thai AirAsia adopted to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, and Colombo was additionally linked. The airport grew right into a logistics node for seafood and shrimp exports. The Andhra Pradesh Air Travels Affiliation (APATA) places site visitors at 27.84 lakh passengers in 2023-24, a month-to-month excessive of two.97 lakh in Might 2023, and about 17.10 lakh within the first seven months of 2025-26. The AAI expanded the terminal in 2019 and, as late as March 2023, proposed a brand new ₹240-crore terminal right here.
Cyclone Hudhud, which crossed the coast on October 12, 2014, tore the roof off a part of the terminal and flooded the runway. The Navy, the AAI and the NDRF cleared the airfield inside days, and INS Dega grew to become the storage level for reduction flown in by the IAF. Flooding had shut the airport for greater than 10 days in 2005.
The wrecked terminal at Visakhapatnam airport after Cyclone Hudhud crossed the coast on October 12, 2014. The storm tore the roof off a part of the constructing and flooded the runway. File
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PTI
The site visitors tells the remaining: On AAI figures, 10.99 lakh passengers in 2014-15; 28.53 lakh in 2018-19, the pre-pandemic peak; 11.14 lakh in 2020-21; and a file 29.55 lakh in 2024-25, with 22,210 plane actions and 4,398 tonnes of cargo. It ends its run because the busiest airport in Andhra Pradesh.
The final day
“I’ve flown out and in of this terminal for thirty years,” stated Okay. Sridhar, a frequent flyer. “Seeing it go is bittersweet. It was compact, accessible, and felt like dwelling.”
Employees and common commuters photographed one another close to the check-in counters by means of the afternoon.
Bhogapuram, about 40 to 48 km from town by completely different reckonings, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 1. GMR Visakhapatnam Worldwide Airport Restricted constructed it in 31 months below a design-build-finance-operate-transfer concession, with a 3,800-metre runway, 18 plane stands and a first-phase capability of six million passengers a 12 months. Value figures differ by supply, from about ₹4,727 crore in most studies to over ₹5,640 crore within the authorities’s inauguration launch; the State says it spent ₹1,583 crore on land and enabling works. Then Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy laid the inspiration stone on Might 3, 2023, and the airport was named after Alluri Sitarama Raju in September 2024. Scoot flies to Singapore three days every week and IndiGo to Abu Dhabi 4.
Bhogapuram is predicted to take each day actions past 90. APATA office-bearers Okay. Kumar Raja, D.S. Varma and O. Naresh Kumar stated its success trusted the street: they sought speedier work on the Coastal Hall, fenced lanes for electrical airport buses, mounted fares with cab aggregators to curb surge pricing, metropolis passenger lounges with ticketing and transit assist at RK Seaside, VMRDA Park and Seethammadhara, and a devoted cargo terminal to maintain pharma and seafood shipments from shifting to Hyderabad or Chennai.
What stays
INS Dega retains its runway, its squadrons and its place because the Jap Naval Command’s premier air station, flying patrol, anti-submarine, rescue and reduction missions over the Bay of Bengal. Vice Admiral Rajesh Pendharkar, then Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, informed reporters on the Navy Day briefing on December 2, 2024 that the station would broaden as soon as civil flights left, that the vacated house would go to infrastructure and extra plane, and that Rafale plane can be stationed right here. India signed for 26 Rafale-M carrier fighters in April 2025.
