Air India has moved all its Visakhapatnam flights to the newly opened Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram, effective Monday, August 17, 2026, formally beginning commercial operations at a facility inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 1.
The new airport, located about 50 km from the previous Visakhapatnam facility and retaining the VTZ airport code, will handle Air India’s 14 weekly Delhi flights alongside twice-daily Hyderabad and Bengaluru services and connections to Vijayawada.
For businesses and investors tracking India’s tier-2 aviation infrastructure build-out, Bhogapuram’s launch is a useful early data point: the 77,342-square-metre terminal, with 22 check-in counters, 18 self-service baggage drop units and seven aerobridges, was built for a substantially larger passenger base than Visakhapatnam’s previous facility could support.
The transition itself is also a logistics case study — shifting an entire city’s commercial air traffic to a facility 50 km away requires coordinated changes across ground transport, cargo handling and passenger communication, all executed on a single operational cutover date rather than a phased rollout.
Andhra Pradesh’s broader industrial and logistics ecosystem stands to benefit most directly: improved air cargo capacity and passenger connectivity typically precede — and sometimes catalyse — increased investment interest from manufacturing and IT services companies evaluating expansion into secondary Indian cities.
Whether Bhogapuram’s expanded capacity translates into sustained traffic growth, rather than simply relocating existing Visakhapatnam demand, will be the real test of the investment case over the coming months.
The new terminal spans 77,342 square metres and features 22 traditional check-in counters, 18 Self Baggage Drop units, advanced security screening systems, and seven aerobridges.
Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 1, 2026, ahead of today’s start of full commercial operations.
Air India said Hyderabad-Bhogapuram and Bengaluru-Bhogapuram routes will each operate twice daily under the new schedule, in addition to the 14 weekly Delhi flights.
Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India