Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has allocated Rs 8.5 crores for the maintenance of the runway to operate Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) daily for 21 hours.
Director General of the CAAN, Sanjiv Gautam stated that the budget meeting of CAAN held on last week, chaired by Minister of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Rabindra Adhikari had approved budget. “The budget has been sanctioned in order to repair and maintain the runway of TIA immediately to operate 21 hours daily,” he added.
As per the information, Board meeting has directed the Airport Engineering Superintendent to identify the highly sensitive area of runway and to repair such areas.
Gautam said, “The amount that the board has been approved will be used for highly sensitive area”. However, the airport engineering department said that it is uncomfortable to conduct the airport for 21 hours. According to airport engineering department, the runway renovation work should be conducted from half past 9pm to half past 7 AM early morning daily.
The Authority has instructed airport engineering department to submit details of how many aircraft have to be in holding pattern in the sky because of the problems shown in the runway.
Currently, due to adverse weather, the flights has been delayed and cancelled.
The recently appointed Minister on March 25 acknowledged that the sole international airport of the country, Tribhuvan International Airport is likely to be serviceable for 24 hours a day.
At an interaction program held at Kathmandu, Minister Adhikari stated that all the necessary technical capacity would be upgraded at the airport in order to run for 24 hours especially to address the air traffic congestion at Kathmandu airspace.
