This is NOT The Twilight Zone…This is Kathmandu Airport

It then took some time for everyone to settle in before the plane pushed back, around 6:20. On push back, the pilot comes on the overhead and announces that we are second for take off and that there are a couple planes to land. It will take about 4 to 5 more minutes for us to take off. No sooner does he announce our imminent departure when he then states: “Air India policy does not allow for takeoffs from Kathmandu after dark. As it is now dark, the flight will not go and everyone will have to deplane.”

They bring the bus out to the plane and the ramp for deplaning. As the deplaning is occurring, after maybe 45 people have gotten off, some locals at the door of the plane start to shout and instruct everyone still on the plane that we are not to deplane and that the plane will take off. They are very loud and raucous and are adamant that the plane needs to go, they have meetings in Dubai, etc. and this is considered an affront, given Air India’s reputation for being high handed [sic].

The airport manager is despatched [sic] to the plane to speak to passengers and explain why we need to disembark. In fact, there are police at the bottom of ramp. The locals continue to speak and people go into the cockpit for some kind of discussions. After about 20 to 25 minutes, and after the first bus has left for the terminal with disembarked passengers, the pilot announces that they now have special permission to take off from Kathmandu at night and, in fact, we will be departing, which we subsequently did around 7:15 pm.

It was a complete shock that: (a) there was the possibility of us not flying and that the crew did nothing to speed things up; and (b) that the apparent people power (or the power of the angered locals, who may have had connections) had to reverse the decision to stay. Of course, not taking off would have been extremely inconvenient to all the passengers as everyone had surrendered their visas and all connecting flights would be missed.

We arrived in Delhi around 8:30 pm, with a little less than 3 hours between our flights. This was going to be a 7 hour layover and it was reduced, after Indian bureaucracy, to a little more than 2 hours.

The situation on the plane was amazing. One last exciting experience we had in Nepal.”

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You want more? According to this article, Kathmandu airport is the third worst in the world! As for the following blog, the title says it all: How to survive arriving into Kathmandu, Nepal for the first time.

What do you think?