Air India has agreed to reduce cargo rates on its flights from Visakhapatnam, a move that will be welcomed by cargo exporters at the city airport.
There was a long-pending demand from exporters to reduce cargo rates at the Visakhapatnam airport to bring them on par with rates prevailing at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad.
The A.P. Air Travellers Association (APATA) took up the issue of differential cargo rates fixed by Air India with Daggubati Purandeswari, Independent Director of Air India, and apprised her that the differential tariffs would hit cargo exports from Visakhapatnam.
Ms. Purandeswari met the Chairman and Managing Director of Air India on January 23 and impressed upon him the need to reduce cargo rates. The CMD agreed to it and said that he would issue instructions in this regard at the earliest.
Ms. Purandeswari intimated the same to cargo officials in Visakhapatnam and to APATA.
APATA representatives O. Naresh Kumar and D.S. Varma thanked Ms. Purandeswari and Visakhapatnam MP M.V.V. Satyanarayana for taking up with various airlines the issue of introduction of cargo flights from the city.
SpiceJet is learnt to have expressed its readiness to start an exclusive cargo flight on the Chennai–Vizag– Kolkata sector, which could carry 20 tons of cargo on a daily basis, from mid-February.
