TIA handles four flights an hour

KATHMANDU, July 19: At least four aircraft land at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) every hour and same number of airplanes take off from the country´s only runway that can handle big planes, according to a latest TIA report. [break]



The airport handled 2,392 international flights -- including landing and takeoffs -- in the first two months of 2009, down by 0.29 percent, whereas frequency of domestic flights, including landing and takeoffs, went up by 0.76 percent to 9,824 in the same period.



The main reason behind marginal decline in international flight movement is termination of services by four airlines -- Cosmic Airlines, Hong Kong Express, Yeti Airlines and Orient Thai. The airlines had conducted 372 flights in the months of January and February last year.



But despite discontinuation of flights by these airlines, addition of services by airlines like Thai Airways and Qatar Airways prevented international flights movements from taking a sharp decline.



"Whereas, in the case of domestic flight movement, addition of flights by domestic airlines led to its increment," Raj Bahadur Maharjan, a senior official of TIA, told myrepublica.com.



The TIA data show that around 18 international airline companies conduct flights from TIA on regular basis, with Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) conducting the most number of flights.



In the months of January and February 2009, NAC made 345 flights, Indian Airlines 310 and Jet Airways 217.



The number of flights operated by these airlines, however, is small and Nepal appears to be in the bottom rung when compared with flight movement in India and some other south Asian countries.



The international airport in Mumbai, for instance, handles 637 flights a day -- around 27 flights an hour, whereas flight movement at the international airport in Delhi stands at 586 or 24 flights an hour. Even international airports in Karachi and Islamabad of Pakistan handle 52,990 and 48,110 flights a year, respectively, which come to be six and five flights per hour.



One of the few countries Nepal surpasses is Sri Lanka. According to 2006 figures, Bandaranayake International Airport of Sri Lanka handled 33,395 flights, around four aircraft per hour.

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