Recently constructed ‘Remote Parking Bay’ at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) has come into operation.
The construction of the new parking bay at North East side was completed around couple of days back and now has come into operation.
The new parking bay that took more than 16 months to complete can accommodate 3 narrow-body aircraft or 2 wide-body aircraft. Now the parking capacity of the airport has been increased to 11 from 9. Previously, TIA could accommodate only 9 aircraft; 3 wide-body and 6 narrow-body aircraft.
Officials from TIA stated that, with the operation of the new parking bay the air traffic at the airport is expected to be minimized.
The construction of 4 new parking bays were started long ago and now the work of east parking bay has been completed and the officials stated that the work of another parking bay at south side is expected to be completed soon.
CAAN had allocated around NRs. 1 billion for construction of new parking bays and the new parking bay was constructed at around nearly 450 million rupees and the new parking bay is located around 250 meters away from the runway.
With the growing demand of air travel, the airlines are opting to expand their service in Nepal. However, the airport infrastructure is very limited to handle and provide effectual service to all the airlines.
TIA has been undergoing several rehabilitation works to increase and enhance the capacity of the airport. the runway of the airport is also being rehabilitated and TIA has been closing its operation from 10 pm to 8 am for the process. TIA is also set to extend the taxiway.
Remote parking bay is an isolated and alternative parking bay constructed far from the main parking bay of the airport and used to avoid physical damages and human threats involved in an aircraft. Any aircraft that is suspected to be in threat of bomb blast or terrorist or hijacking activities will be preceded to park in the remote bay. It will provide crucial aid avoiding flight disruption by providing isolated space to the aircraft which needs to be parked for long time or due to abnormal reasons.