Runway renovation process of country’s sole international airport Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) is nearing completion. The renovation work is stated to be completed within a week and the airport is set to resume 21 hour operation.
The airport is set to resume operating for 21 hours from July 1 and the runways final phase of rehabilitation work is going on currently.
The rehabilitation work is likely to be completed within the deadline as full runway base course has been blacktopped and blacktopping top course of around 1250 meter has been completed.
The main layer of runway has been blacktopped by 20 centimeter and the top layer of blacktopping of around 6.5 centimeter thick is going on.
The airport will be operating for 21 hours for next 2 month and the airport will again partially halt the flight operation to rehabilitate the parallel taxiway and other remaining part. The taxiway rehabilitation process is scheduled to commence from September 1.
The airport will be closed for around 7 hours later while taxiway rehabilitation process commences and the airport authority stated that the flight will not be affected.
After the runway and taxiway rehabilitation completes, the airport management will proceed to operate airport for full 24 hours. The runway is expected to operate 24 hours for next 20 years after rehabilitation.
Air Transport Capacity Enhancement Project of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) initiated the runway rehabilitation on April 1, 2019 (Chaitra 18).
The up-gradation work of the runway of TIA is being carried out from 10 PM to 8 AM every day. In order to conduct advance runway rehab, the airport is closed for 10 hours a day for the three months from April 1.
China Aero Technology International Engineering Corporation Chinese Company is in charge of the runway rehabilitation project of TIA. The agreement to rehabilitate the runway was signed on November 5, 2018 at cost of around NRs. 3.75 Billion.
For the first time in the History of TIA, the runway of airport is being upgraded completely.
TIA’s runway was built in 1975. As per the international standard, runways of international airports should be refurbished with the use of new bitumen every 10 years. TIA, however, has never done that and because of that the flight operations were affected mainly on monsoon season.
