Gorkha Airlines Pvt. Ltd. was an

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

based in

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

. It operated scheduled and charter flights to domestic destinations, as well as daily mountain flights in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

. Its main base was

Tribhuvan International Airport Tribhuvan International Airport ( Nepali: त्रिभुवन अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय विमानस्थल) (, colloquially referred to as TIA) is an international airport located in Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal. I ...

in Kathmandu. The company slogan was ''Fly With Us The Gallant Way.''

History

Do_228_at_VNLK_turns_around_on_the_runway

The airline was established in 1996 and started operations on 8 July 1996. It began operations with two

Mil Mi-17 The Mil Mi-17 ( NATO reporting name: Hip) is a Soviet-designed Russian military helicopter family introduced in 1975 (Mi-8M), continuing in production at two factories, in Kazan and Ulan-Ude. It is known as the Mi-8M series in Russian servic ...

helicopters and moved on to scheduled flights using fixed-wing aircraft.

Flight International ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's oldes ...

3 April 2007 In 1998, the airline took over two

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

s, which the airline used exclusively after discontinuing helicopter operations in 2005. The airline ceased to operate in 2008.JP airline-fleets international, editions 2008/09 and 2009/10 In 2017, Gorkha Airlines received the approval from Civil Aviation Ministry to reoperate the Airline. It planned to operate two ERJ twin-engine regional jets produced by

Embraer Embraer S.A. () is a Brazilian multinational aerospace manufacturer that produces commercial, military, executive and agricultural aircraft, and provides aeronautical services. It was founded in 1969 in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, where i ...

, and two

Dornier aircraft Dornier may refer to: * Claudius Dornier (1884–1969), German aircraft designer and builder ** Dornier Flugzeugwerke, German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1914 by Claudius Dornier * Dornier Consulting, international consulting and project manag ...

on domestic routes. However, by 2020, this did not happen.

Destinations

Gorkha Airlines regularly served the following destinations, which were cancelled either at the closure of operations or before: Gorkha Airlines also operated scheduled mountain sightseeing flights from

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...

range. The flights usually departed in the early morning hours and return to the airport one hour later.

Fleet

At the time of closure, Gorkha Airlines operated the following aircraft:

Former fleet

Accidents and incidents

*On 30 June 2005, a

(9N-ACV) aircraft carrying nine passengers and three crew members en route from

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

skidded off the runway while attempting to land at Lukla Airport. The passengers suffered only minor injuries, however, after the accident, the aircraft was withdrawn from service and written off.Aviation Safety Network
retrieved 18 November 2006

References

External links

* via

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

{{ Airlines of Nepal Defunct airlines of Nepal Airlines established in 1996 1996 establishments in Nepal