Winter rain affects flights

Kathmandu, January 17

Winter rain today affected several domestic and international flights being operated from and to Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

Moreover, hilly and mountainous regions were hit by heavy snowfall, which worsened the situation, largely affecting flight schedules across the country. As per TIA, several domestic flights were delayed or cancelled and a couple of international flights were diverted.

According to TIA, two flights — one each of Thai Airways and Thai Lion Air — coming to Kathmandu were diverted to Dhaka in Bangladesh due to bad weather while other international flights were not affected.

In the domestic sector, all the flights to Tumlingtar and Lukla were cancelled due to the incessant rainfall since last night. Likewise, one flight scheduled for Surkhet of Buddha Air was cancelled, while flights from and to Bharatpur airport were disrupted till 2:00pm today.

Thereafter, the delayed flights resumed their operations.

A flight of Simrik Air scheduled for Pokhara was also cancelled.

Meanwhile, Buddha Air, Yeti Airlines and Shree Airlines were able to operate a flight each this morning from Nijgadh airport. However, in the afternoon all the flights were halted due to low visibility owing to the continuous rainfall. Similarly, chopper flights scheduled for different destinations were also cancelled today.

Around 30 international airline firms and three Nepali airline companies operate around 100 international flights every day at TIA. Likewise, nine fixed-wing domestic air services and 10 chopper firms operate around 400 flights a day at TIA in the domestic sector.