Flights cancelled as fog blankets country

Thick fog at most airports across the country led to scores of flight delays and cancellations on Wednesday. Airport officials said that at least 45 flights

were cancelled from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), and that almost all flights were delayed for more than an hour.

Hundreds of travellers were affected particularly those planning to celebrate Christmas. On the other hand, airlines reported huge losses due to the flight cancellations. Operators estimate that the cancellation of a round trip from Kathmandu to Lukla by a 19-seater aircraft results in a loss of Rs 300,000. 

Kathmandu airport had fair visibility but it was bad in Pokhara, Bhadrapur, Tumlingtar, Simara, Dhangadhi and Lukla, according to airport officials. “Not even a single flight operated on these six sectors on Wednesday.” According to Buddha Air, it was forced to cancel more than 12 flights including some Mountain View flights. However, bad weather did not have much effect on its Biratnagar, Bhairahawa, Janakpur and Bharatpur services. “Due to poor visibility from early morning, not a single flight was conducted to Pokhara, Simara, Tumlingtar and Bhadrapur,” said Buddha Air official Bikash Basnet. “However, we managed to operate on-time flights to other sectors.”

Flights are operated when ground visibility is 5,000 metres at most airports, but planes can take off and land during 2,500-metre visibility by applying special visual flights rules. Airline officials said that ground visibility in Pokhara had improved to 2,000 metres at 11 am, but it started to deteriorate after that.

Yeti Airlines and Tara Air reported around 20 cancellations on Wednesday. Most of the cancellations were on the Lukla and Pokhara sectors. There are 15 flights from TIA to the tourist destination of Pokhara daily, and almost all of them are fully booked due to Christmas and New Year, airline officials said.

Prajwol Thapa, senior marketing manager of Simrik Airlines, said that they were forced to cancel nine flights on Wednesday. “Four flights to Lukla were cancelled due to windy weather conditions while dense fog affected another four flights to Pokhara,” Thapa said.

According to him, planes have been unable to land at Lukla, the gateway to Everest, for the last three days. “This is the time when foreign trekkers return from trekking and celebrate Christmas and New Year here.”   

The period mid-December to January-end is a bad time for all domestic carriers as they are forced make delays and cancellations. Operators said that last winter was the most painful for airlines as they had to cancel around 40 percent of their flights.     

Domestic air traveller movement in the first nine months of 2013 dropped 4.11 percent year on year to 1.10 million, according to TIA. One of the reasons for the decline, according to operators, is the high number of flight cancellations, particularly during the period mid-December to mid-February. Grappling with multiple woes, domestic carriers said that they were yet to feel the impact of the European Commi-ssion’s ban on Nepali airlines.

The EC has said that European operators and travel agents should inform European travellers who will have a right to reimbursement if they have booked a seat on a Nepali carrier as part of a journey to Nepal and decide not to use it. Nepal annually receives a large number of high-end European travellers for mountaineering and trekking activities from March-May.

TIA stats show that around 176 flights take off and land there daily. The highest flight frequency was observed in April, a peak tourist season in Nepal, when there were 231 flights daily.

source: the kathmandu post,26 Dec 2013