Pokhara airport gets its first daily international service

What happened

The first flight left Terminal 3 at Dubai International on 23 September and was greeted in Pokhara with a water cannon salute, according to flydubai. Flight FZ 1165 leaves Dubai at 12:00 and lands in Pokhara at 18:15 local time. The return flight, FZ 1166, leaves Pokhara at 19:15 and reaches Dubai at 22:00. The Post said the aircraft on the first flight was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 with 166 seats.

flydubai says Pokhara is its second destination in Nepal after Kathmandu, and that Pokhara is now the third airport in Nepal with scheduled international flights. With the new route, the airline runs 35 flights a week to Nepal, alongside four daily flights to Kathmandu. The company says it has carried more than 4.5 million passengers to and from Kathmandu since 2009, and that about 65 percent of its Kathmandu traffic connects through Dubai to other flights.

The Post's editorial welcomed the service but asked whether it can last. It noted that Himalaya Airlines started a weekly Pokhara-Lhasa flight in March 2025 and stopped it because too few passengers used it. Apart from that, Pokhara had received only occasional charter flights from China and Bhutan. The editorial said hotel associations and local businesses in Pokhara welcomed the new service.

The engineering behind it

Pokhara International Airport sits on a hillside at Chhinne Danda, about 800 m above sea level, according to Airport Technology. Its runway is 2,500 m long and 45 m wide and runs east to west, the Post reported in 2023. A parallel taxiway 1,200 m long and 23 m wide connects the runway to the parking areas. The airport was designed for medium-size jets such as the Airbus A320, the Boeing 737 and the Boeing 757-200.

An airport is a set of systems, not just a runway. Airport Technology lists two aprons, each 300 m by 100 m, with three international parking bays for Boeing 737 aircraft, two of them with passenger boarding bridges. The international terminal covers 10,000 square metres, the domestic terminal 4,000, and the customs and cargo building 3,500. There is also an air traffic control tower, a fuel storage facility and an air navigation unit. The airport is designed for about one million passengers a year.

Power supply shows how much the airport depends on other networks. Airport Technology reports three 11 kV substations inside the airport, fed by 3.6 MW from the Kundhara substation of the Nepal Electricity Authority. Standby diesel generators, including four of 1,250 kVA, take over if grid power fails. Runway lights, radio navigation aids and security scanners all stop without power, so this backup is part of the safety design.

The airport was built by China CAMC Engineering under an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. The Post reported in 2023 that it cost $215.96 million, paid for by a soft loan from China's EXIM Bank. A quarter of the loan carries no interest and the rest carries 2 percent a year, repaid over 20 years with a 7-year grace period.

What it means in Nepal

An airport earns its cost only through traffic. The Post's editorial pointed to Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa. When Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu cut its operating hours for maintenance from November 2024, flights moved to Bhairahawa. Once Kathmandu returned to normal hours, Bhairahawa lost all its airlines. This was not new. The Post reported in January 2023 that Bhairahawa had attracted only one foreign airline, Jazeera Airways, in its first months. The editorial warned that Pokhara could face the same risk.

Part of the reason lies outside the airport. Labour permits, medical tests and paperwork for workers going abroad are mostly handled in Kathmandu, and so are most manpower companies. As a result, people near the regional airports often fly from the capital. The government plans to involve manpower companies, has waived landing, parking, navigation and ground-handling fees, offers discounts on regular flights, and has formed a committee to attract more airlines.

The editorial also listed gaps that still need work. These include immigration, plant and animal quarantine, customs and cargo handling, an adequate aviation fuel depot, warehousing, rooms for passengers and crew if a plane is grounded, and good roads from nearby districts. Most of these are engineering and planning tasks. Each one must work before an airline can plan a reliable daily schedule.

The editorial asked the government to manage Pokhara and Bhairahawa as part of one national airport system, instead of treating Kathmandu as the only priority. It also called for diplomatic talks to bring airlines to Bhairahawa and add routes from Pokhara, and for hotels, transport operators and travel agencies to prepare. Airport use depends on all of these groups working together.