Construction of the Pokhara International airport apron has finally completed. The 5,519 sq. metre apron has been completed after 2 years since the work began.
The airport apron is also referred to as the tarmac which is the area of an airport where aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled, or boarded. The completion of apron project has led airport project to achieve around 30% of physical work and the project official has stated that they are now working on other infrastructure of airport along with runway and taxiway.
The project has also completed around 40% of construction work of the airport runway and is expected to be completed within couple of months from now.
The airport is being constructed as category 4D standard set by the ICAO, IATA and FAA. A 2.5km-long and 45m-wide runway with a 330m runway strip is planned to be built at the proposed Pokhara airport to support take-off and landing operations of big commercial aircraft such as Airbus A320, Boeing 737-700 series, and Boeing 757-200 with passenger capacity of around 190.
A 1.2km x 23m parallel taxiway will be built from the runway central line on the north side. The parking bay of the airport will accommodate 3 Airbus 320 or Boeing 737/757 and 4 ATR 72 and 4 Twin Otter aircraft.
The construction contract of the airport has been undertaken by Chinese Company CAMC Engineering to complete the work within 2021 July 10. The constructor company has aimed to complete the work of airfield that includes work of runway, taxiway, parking bay etc. within current fiscal year (by June 2019).
The airport site is located at Chhinne Danda, 800m above mean sea level in the city of Pokhara. It is situated 3km east of Pokhara’s existing domestic airport which is well connected to the Prithvi Highway (Kathmandu-Pokhara).
The airport is being constructed with intention to provide regional, domestic and international passengers with additional flight services over the current airport to encourage tourism in the Pokhara region, which is one of the popular tourist destinations in Nepal.
