KATHMANDU, Feb 2: The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has increased the operating hours of the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) by two hours, effective from Saturday, after completing over 60 percent of its ongoing construction works at the airport to expand passenger and flight capacity.
The airport, which used to operate for 18 hours under normal circumstances, had only been operating for 14 hours (8 am to 10 pm) since the construction works began on November 8.
According to officials from the CAAN, starting from Saturday, the operation hours have been extended by two hours (7 am to 11 pm) with the goal of facilitating more flights and easing passenger movement at the airport.
“Currently, both the domestic and international terminals are overcrowded. The domestic terminal is facilitating additional 500 passengers over its hourly capacity while the international terminal is facilitating 700 more passengers,” spokesperson for CAAN Gyanendra Bhul told Republica, “With the increase in operation hours, we hope to ease the passenger traffic at the airport.”
He claimed that the two-hour extension of operation period will increase the number of flights operating at the airport by around 15 percent.
He added that the one-hour extension in the morning (7 am to 8 am) was implemented to facilitate more domestic flights and mountain flights while the one-hour extension in the night (10 pm to 11 pm) was implemented to facilitate international flights.
Although the operating hours of the TIA have been increased, no airline operator, domestic or international, added new flights on Saturday. Only mountain flight operators took advantage of the extension period on Saturday by operating flights between 7 am and 8 am.
“We had at least eight mountain flights operating from the airport during the one-hour extension on Saturday morning,” he said.
Spokesperson for the TIA Rinji Sherpa informed Republica that while the schedule for domestic flights will be updated in a few days to facilitate and streamline domestic flights facilitated by the TIA, the airport is not currently expecting addition of international flights in the one-hour extension period during the night.
“The number of international flights at the TIA will not increase right away,” he said, “The number of domestic flights, however, is likely to increase with a change in flight schedule within a few days.”
The CAAN expects to bring TIA into full operation by March 31. Spokesperson Bhul cited the 60 percent progress to claim that the expansion works will be completed on time.
The expansion project, which is estimated to cost Rs 15 billion, is expected to increase the airport’s annual passenger capacity. The expansion project includes infrastructure improvement works to increase the runway and taxiway capacity, enhance the parking and terminal capacity, and improve the hangar.
“The TIA has the capacity to facilitate 8 million passengers annually but it served around 9 million passengers last year,” Bhul told Republica, “Expecting a 10 percent annual increase in passengers, we have planned to enhance the capacity of the TIA to 10 million by the end of 2026.”
He added that the increase in operation hours will help the airlines operate more flights, which will hopefully decrease the airfare rates.
“As the operation period increases, so will the number of flights gradually,” Bhul said, “We hope the increase in flights will stabilize the supply of flight tickets, decreasing the airfare rates.”