In the days of the Hippie Trail, Kathmandu was six weeks away from the UK by Magic Bus – a fun and fume-filled vehicle calling at Istanbul , Tehran and Kabul . The happy hippies discovered an indulgent and intriguing city, the welcoming Nepali people and the prospect of trekking in the world’s highest mountain range . These days the overland journey through Iran and Afghanistan is a tougher proposition.
Instead, most travellers fly in. The nation needs all the tourists it can get right now, to rebuild after devastating floods earlier in the year. Yet at the height of the trekking season, Nepal ’s Civil Aviation Authority is making life extremely difficult for people to get in – and out.
The nation’s main airport, Kathmandu (KTM), has just started to close each night from 10pm to 8am until the end of March 2025. The aim is to improve the layout of taxiways and add much-needed capacity. During the remaining 14 hours of each day when the airport is open, operations are currently a shambles due to air-traffic control hold-ups.
Planes typically wait an hour or more to get in and out of the one-runway airport. My Thai Lion Air departure on Tuesday afternoon from Kathmandu to Bangkok took off an unfortunate 100 minutes behind schedule. The necessary work to make the airport capable of meeting the demand for travel in and around Nepal must be carried out during the current dry season, which is also the peak time for trekking.
But the announcement of nightly closures was mad.
