Thirty-five planes started flying outside Kathmandu at night, causing problems to helicopters

From Monday, night parking has been started as per the flight permits of the airlines. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) had issued a circular stating that helicopters and planes flying domestically should be kept at the airport specified by the flight permit from July 7, saying that it would further strengthen flight safety.

Accordingly, planes of various airlines have spent the night at Dhangadhi, Nepalgunj, Biratnagar and other airports from Monday evening. They have also taken the first flight from the same airport.

The airline operators were agitated after giving two days time to many planes to land outside the valley at night. However, the NEA had paved the way for the implementation of the decision through dialogue with the Nepal Airlines Operators Association.

According to Gyanendra Bhulka, Information Officer of NEA and Deputy Manager of Flight Permit Branch, about 90 percent of the planes that had to spend the night in Mofasal left Kathmandu on Monday. He said that except for technical reasons, the planes will now land at the designated airport at night.

According to him, most of the aircrafts got ‘flower occupancy’ on the first flight from the airport which was canceled on Tuesday morning. “From yesterday, the decision of the authority was implemented,” he said. “One of the planes of Solar Airlines could not go out due to technical reasons. Now all the planes do as scheduled at night.

According to NEA, the parking capacity of Tribhuvan Airport is for 17 ships. But so far 52 ships were parked.

During the Kathmandu-centric flight of the domestic airline, there were problems such as congestion in the terminal building from Hold, Delay. In order to solve this, NEA had formed a study task force on 11 April 2079 BS.

The task force consisted of seven people from NEA including General Manager of Tribhuvan Airport Prem Nath Thakur and managing director of Buddha Air Birendra Bahadur Basnet, chief executive officer of Yati Airlines Anuj Rimal and managing director of Shree Airlines Sudhir Mittal.

According to the authority, the task force had recommended that arrangements be made for night parking at the base airport (from where the first flight takes place in the morning). On the same basis, the helicopter company issued a circular on June 7 stating that the first flight should be made from the same airport after spending the night at the designated base airport. According to the circular, the first flight from the same airport will be operated by the airline companies after spending the night at the designated base airport from 13 July.