Four int'l flights diverted from TIA

KATHMANDU:

At least four international flights had to be diverted this morning due to partial closure of the runway at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).

The tarmac of the country’s only international airport was partially shut down for four hours this morning as it took TIA management longer than usual to complete regular maintenance works. Maintenance works at TIA generally begin after the departure of the last flight at around 12:30am. It is then reopened at 6:00am.

“We opened as usual at 6:00am today as well, but did not allow international flights to land till 10:00am,” said TIA General Manager Birendra Prasad Shrestha.

In other words, aircraft heading for international destinations were allowed to make departures and there were no restrictions on arrival and departure of domestic flights either.

“But we had to suspend international arrivals because it took us longer to complete regular maintenance works,” said Shrestha. “Because of this, passenger flights of Turkish Airlines, Oman Air and Air Arabia and cargo flight of Qatar Airways had to be diverted.”

It took longer to complete regular maintenance works today because ‘we had to lay aggregates on an area of 11 metres by four metres and 15 cm deep, coat it with mixtures and let it cool down’, according to Shrestha.

“But this was not because of formation of cracks on the runway,” Shrestha clarified.

The runway was under a lot of pressure since the earthquake of April 25 when aircraft carrying rescue teams and relief materials started making landings at frequent intervals.

TIA, which used to operate 300 flights per day on average, including around 70 international flights, was handling 370 flights, including cargo and chartered, per day at that time. The runway was also kept open round-the-clock during those days. This led to formation of minor cracks on the runway.

Later, TIA had prohibited landing of chartered and cargo flights with takeoff weight of over 196 tonnes for the time being.

TIA’s runway had suffered heavy damage in 2013 due to greater air traffic movement, use of heavy-weight aircraft, ageing runway and climatic conditions. At that time, four potholes as deep as five centimetres were created on eastern and western side of the runway’s central line.

Source: THT