Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has recorded dynamic increment in international passenger traffic by the end of 3rd quarter of 2018. The airport has seen gradual increment in the passenger for last 15 years and in this 3Q, the airport has recorded more than 3 million air passengers.
Though the airport has been through various problems like runway crack, small terminal building and other problems in infrastructure, the airport managed to increase around 12.51 % of total air passenger than other year.
The number of international flight also grew by around 2.79% from around 30 international flights including both from domestic and foreign carriers and recording more than 90 daily flights in international sector.
Lately, the sole international airport of the country airport has decided to stop giving slot to new airlines during peak hours as it caused congestion while the airport has increased its operating hours to 21 hours a day.
Domestic carriers are currently using other airports like in Ramechhap to carry tourists to destinations like Lukla during this peak tourist season thus the international airport has been able to reduce holding time for the other airlines that has resulted in increase in flights as well as passengers.
The international flight frequency was 27,118 flights as recorded in 2016 and 33,362 in 2017 while around nearly 25,000 flights have already been conducted in 9 months of this year.
Currently Jet airways is leading aircraft in passenger movement and Nepal Airlines is currently in second.
The number of tourists has also increased in the 10 months of 2018 from January to October. Around 882 thousand tourists have traveled during this time whereas it was around 757 thousand in same period in last year. There has been increment by 16.5% as the number of tourist increased by more than 100 thousand.
Tourists from neighboring countries China and India have topped the list as more than 121 thousand tourists from China and 161 thousand tourists from India have visited the country.
