Sri Sathya Sai Airport

Sri Sathya Sai Airport (IATA: PUT, ICAO: VOPN) is located at Puttaparthi in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. The airport is named for Sathya Sai Baba, the Indian guru. It is a small airport with facilities for chartered flights rather than commercial aircraft.

The airport was inaugurated on November 24, 1990 to serve the Super Speciality Hospital for emergency situations. The 1000 metre long airstrip was constructed by L&T ECC. It was later extended to enable the operation of jet aircraft.

There is no scheduled commercial air service at this time. Until the year 2007, the Sri Sathya Sai Airport offered flights to Mumbai and to Chennai airport on scheduled dates. These flights were operated by Indian Airlines and was a stopover from their Hyderabad-Vishakapatnam services.

In time, the frequency of these flights decreased. After Indian airlines completed their merger with Air India, these flights ceased to operate. By this time, the airlines only operated flights to Bangalore thrice a week.

On November 12, 2005, the Indian low-cost carrier Air Deccan commenced operations from and to Hyderabad and Chennai twice a day. These flights did not last long since the airline merged with Kingfisher Airlines and became known as Kingfisher Red.

The Kingfisher Red brand name was soon fully integrated into the Kingfisher fleet. However, Kingfisher did continue the flights to Puttaparthi for a short time until 2008, when all scheduled flights to Parthi officially ceased. It is currently unknown whether the airport will offer scheduled flights in the future.

The airport still serves the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi for emergency situations that require quick transport.

Airports in Andhra Pradesh