The authority has decided to open the domestic terminal of Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) an hour earlier from 1 September, 2018 in the aim of smooth operation of domestic flights during the peak tourist season and to reduce air traffic congestion.
Raj Kumar Chettri, General Manager of TIA stated that the domestic terminal will open at 5 am whereas the air traffic control tower will be active from 5:40 am. At present, the domestic terminal opens at 6 am and flights start taking off from 6:30 am.
Process for the first flights from 6AM has been planned so that, it can provide some relief to traffic congestion.
Around 400 domestic flights and 100 international flights are operated daily on September-November. Similarly, about 75 per cent are domestic flights.
Lukla Airport can cause massive traffic congestion at TIA, if flight is disrupted due to any reason. Airport officials said that the main purpose of opening the domestic terminal is to process as many flights to Lukla as possible.
In the other side, the TIA official has disagreed to operate TIA round-the-clock without reconstruction of the runway. Chettri informed that the runway rehabilitation will start after the completion of construction of Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA). GBIA construction work is expected to complete by July, 2019.
Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has allocated $28 million for the runway rehabilitation and also planned to advance taxiway.
