Ramechhap Airport is a domestic airport serving the municipality of Manthali, the district headquarters of

Ramechhap District Ramechhap District ( ne, रामेछाप जिल्ला), a part of Bagmati Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district, known as wallo Kirat Ramechhap, with Manthali ...

located in the

Tamakoshi River The Tamakoshi River ( ne, तामाकोशी) is part of the Koshi or Sapta Koshi river system in Nepalese Himalayas. It originates from (or Rongshar Tsangpo) and Lapchi Gang rivers close to the Nepal-Tibet border. It flows in southern d ...

valley in

Bagmati Province Bagmati Province ( ne, बाग्मती प्रदेश, ''Bagmati Pradesh'') is one of the seven provinces of Nepal established by the constitution of Nepal. The province is Nepal's second-most populous province and fifth largest provinc ...

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 ...

. As of October 2022, most flights to Lukla Airport are operated from Ramechhap Airport.

History

thumbnail, Nepalese service members offload supplies from a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey assigned to Joint Task Force 505 humanitarian assistance and disaster relief at Manthali, the 2015 earthquake. The airport was opened in October 1979. In 2015, the runway was renovated and upgraded from a grass/clay surface to concrete. In 2019, as the sole runway of

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 ...

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

was being renovated and the airport was closed over night, all flights to

Lukla Lukla ( ne, लुक्ला ) is a small town in the Khumbu Pasanglhamu rural municipality of the Solukhumbu District in the Province No. 1 of north-eastern Nepal. Situated at , it is a popular place for visitors to the Himalayas near Mount Eve ...

were operated from Ramechhap Airport, the closest airport to Kathmandu, as these flights need to take off early in the morning to not get caught in dangerous winds in Lukla. During peak, the airport served 24 flights per day, However, the airport had serious problems handling the mass of tourists traveling to Lukla. Following this, plans were developed to upgrade the airport. By 2020, flights to Lukla were operated from Kathmandu again, and with

Tara Air Tara Air Pvt. Ltd. is an airline headquartered in Kathmandu, Nepal. It is a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines. Tara Air was formed in 2009 using aircraft from the Yeti Airlines fleet and is based at Tribhuvan International Airport, with a secondary h ...

's discontiunation of the flight to Kathmandu, the airport was left without scheduled operations. In 2022, the

Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN, ne, नेपाल नागरिक उड्डयन प्राधिकरण, translit=Nepāl Nāgarik Uḍḍayan Prādhikaraṇ) is an independent civil aviation regulator. It was establishe ...

decided that flight to Lukla were to be operated from Ramechhap Airport instead of Kathmandu again. Despite this being the second instance, critics argued that the airport and its surrounding infrastructure was still not sufficiently developed.

Facilities

The airport is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

which is in length.

Airlines and destinations

Access

The airport is located near Feeder Road 32. It is connected to

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

via BP Highway.

Incidents and accidents

* 22 April 2019 – A

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 ...

aircraft skidded off the runway upon landing at Ramechhap Airport. Due to adverse weather, the flight from

to Lukla Airport was diverted to Ramechhap Airport. All of the crew and passengers evacuated the aircraft safely. * 20 March 2020 – A

Summit Air Summit Air (8199400 Canada Inc.) is a Canadian airline headquartered in Yellowknife that operates scheduled, charter and cargo aviation throughout the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. Summit Air is a member of the Ledcor Group of Compan ...

Let 410 The Let L-410 Turbolet is a twin-engine short-range transport aircraft, manufactured by the Czech aircraft manufacturer Let Kunovice (named Aircraft Industries since 2005), often used as an airliner. The aircraft is capable of landing on short an ...

en route from Lukla to Kathmandu made an emergency landing at Ramechhap Airport due to an engine failiues. All of the crew and passengers evacuated the aircraft safely.

References

External links

* {{authority control Airports in Nepal Buildings and structures in Ramechhap District 1979 establishments in Nepal