An aircraft landed at Dang’s Tarigaun Airport after a gap of one and a half months.
According to Pradeep Bhusal, a senior officer at the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, an aircraft landed at the airport on Thursday for the first time in one and a half months. Eight passengers from Kathmandu and four from Dang travelled on Thursday aboard Nepal Airlines’ 19-seat aircraft.
Senior Officer Bhusal said the Dang-Kathmandu air service, which had been irregular due to weather, would now become regular. “Weather had made the service irregular; now it will be regular,” he said.
According to him, the service will now operate four days a week — Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The current airfare is Rs 12,000. Bhusal said the flight would be available between 9 and 11 in the morning.
Tarigaun currently has a runway of only 750 metres, which can accommodate only 19-seat aircraft. Because only low-capacity aircraft can use the airport, and even that service is irregular, passengers from this region are often forced to travel via Nepalgunj or Bhairahawa instead. Although calls have repeatedly been raised to expand the runway to accommodate larger aircraft, this has yet to materialise.
The airport, established in 1954 AD, has not been expanded since. A budget of Rs 25 crore has been allocated in the current fiscal year for upgrading the airport.
–RSS
