Bhadrapur Airport has been facilitated with newly established Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) technology from February 17, 2018.
A test flight was conducted on the newly established flight rules, Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in coordination with Buddha Air where the pilots landed their aircraft on the reference of the instrument on the flight deck using RNAV (Area Navigation), GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) approach at the airport on February 17, 2018.
Around next three month, technology can be implemented to land aircraft at the Bhadrapur airport. All the aircraft had been operating through Visual Flight Rule (VFR) technology where VFR requires a visibility of 5 km while under the IFR, a visibility of 1.6 km is suitable for an aircraft to land.
Mr. Purna Chudal, Airport Chief stated that the test flight was pleasing and would take three months for technical work to permit aircraft to land at the airport using IFR technology.
Earlier, the Airport had remained out of operation for more than a week at this winter season due to presence of thick layer of fog. Chandragadhi Airport is a significant hub for domestic as well as international travelers mainly from India. One thousand passengers have been affected daily in the presence of such weather condition.
The airport will also be equipped with VOR/DME instruments soon. The instruments installation work is expected to start from March 2018. Japanese engineers from JICA came to the airport to check for the feasibility of installation on January this year.
Presently, Buddha Air, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), Saurya Airlines, Yeti Airlines and Shree Airlines operate in this airport. Daily 8 to 10 flights have been operating in the Kathmandu-Bhadrapur-Kathmandu based route.
