Kathmandu, April 6

Both domestic and international flights at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) were affected by inclement weather today morning.

Low visibility due to continuous rain today morning affected both departing and arriving flights scheduled from 8am to 12pm. No aircraft could take-off or land at TIA between 8am and 10:30am while flights scheduled from 10:30 am to 12 pm had been delayed, according to the TIA administration.

Among international flights, scheduled flights of Air China from Kunming and Sichuan Airlines from Lhasa could not land at TIA due to low visibility and had to return. Meanwhile, a scheduled Fly Dubai flight from Dubai was diverted to Kolkata and landed at TIA only at around 4pm.

Likewise, most of the domestic flights scheduled for today morning were also affected by the poor weather.

As stated by TIA, seven flights to Lukla from TIA were cancelled. There were five flights of Tara Air and two of Sita Air scheduled for Lukla today morning. Similarly, five flights to Pokhara including three of Yeti Airlines, one of Simrik Airlines and one of Buddha Air were also cancelled.

Nepal Airlines Corporation also had to cancel its regular flight to Bhojpur.

Meanwhile, several other flights were delayed.

However, after 12pm all domestic and international flights resumed operations on a regular basis, TIA added.

Meanwhile, domestic airline companies have already been suffering from the runway expansion work at TIA, which started on April 1. Several flights have been diverted, cancelled or rescheduled due to the runway expansion work.

TIA sees around 400 flights including 100 international flights per day.

There are around 29 international airline companies and three Nepali airline companies conducting international flights from TIA.

Meanwhile, nine fixed-wing domestic scheduled air service providers and 10 helicopter operators have been conducting regular flights to various domestic destinations from TIA.