Air Force Station In India

Port Blair Air Force Station

Operating today with its latest rename of Veer Savarkar International Airport in the Port Blair islands, Port Blair AFS was renamed for the first time to Port Blair Airport. This airport had been established as an airbase meant for the Air Forces but later it became a commercial airport due to growing needs of general masses for air travel. Such needs augured the authorities to turn it into a commercial airport. This airport became international airport later on with the expansion of flights to many domestic and international destinations.

Located in the Port Blair city of Andaman and Nicobar islands owned by the Indian subcontinent, erstwhile Port Blair AFS or present day Veer Savarkar International Airport is owned and operated by the Airports Authority of India which ensure that its operation goes easy in all respects. This airport is situated at an elevation of 14 ft., from the sea level. The place where airport is located geographically coordinates at 11°38′28″N 092°43′47″E. This airport is equipped with all the latest amenities.

Being an island airport keeps Port Blair AFS or Veer Savarkar International Airport into limelight for many other reasons including its small sized terminal being made uniquely on the islands. Selected flights operate at this airport. The terminal of this airport has 2 gates for the passenger movement. This airport doesn’t have any jet bridges though. Passengers are usually transported to the terminal through buses. It has excellent apron where most aircrafts are parked. At present its apron and 03 parking bays can easily accommodate 7 airplanes in one go.

History

Present day Veer Savarkar International Airport at Port Blair is a full-fledged airport which has the passenger movement of 580,993 passengers as was it recorded in a recent estimation. By now this airport already has the 7,078 aircraft movement and so is the cargo tonnage consisting of 2,299 respectively. This airport is commonly denoted with its other names too like Port Blair Airport and Port Blair AFS even to this day at a time it has already gained status of one of the growing international airports in the country.

As main airport of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Port Blair AFS or Port Blair Airport is located at a distance of 2 kilometers in the southern side of the Port Blair city. Gradual developments happened and this airport was finally made operational for general masses over the period. While such processes were going on the need was also felt to rename this airbase in the name of one of the prominent freedom fighters Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and with those changes on this airport came the rest changes—like it becoming an international airport.

Runways

Erstwhile Port Blair AFS or present day Veer Savarkar International Airport operates from its sole runway which is of 3,290m length. This runway is capable enough to accommodate any wide-bodies aircraft especially Boeing 737, Airbus 320 or Airbus 321 et al which take off and land from this airport on regular intervals.

The runway is equipped with the ILS which makes the aircraft operation easy even in the low visibility operations. Once the runway of Port Blair AFS would also have a parallel road across it. Usually traffic would have been stopped while aircrafts could take off but the present day runway has no such road anymore. It has made things easier and hardly is there any traffic or flight disruption nowadays.

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