Kathmandu, May 5
The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has extended its emergency flight permit issuance service outside Kathmandu also.
Until now, the airlines were required to contact the CAAN office at the Tribhuvan International Airport of Kathmandu for such a permit. However, from now onwards, they can apply for such permits at the CAAN offices based at airports in Lukla (Solukhumbu), Pokhara (Kaski), Nepalgunj (Banke), and Surkhet (Surkhet).
Although the government has recently suspended scheduled national and international flights owing to the Covid-19 crisis, emergency flights can operate during this period also. In that case, the mentioned airports can issue permits, informs a source at the authority.
In particular, the authority has expected a lot of emergency flights from the Lukla airport in the next few weeks as hundreds of mountaineers have gathered at the Everest base camp to push themselves to the highest peak of the world. Many of them might need rescue flights or flights to come back to Kathmandu without delay.
