Wide-body planes asked not to exceed 196 tons

Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has requested international airlines operating wide- body aircraft in Nepal to limit their landing and take off weight to 196 tons if possible. A meeting Friday of CAAN officials and officials of the Airline Operator´s Committee Nepal (AOCN) and international airlines operating wide-body aircraft in Nepal came up with three major decisions, of which limiting aircraft landing and take-off weight to 196 tons till the end of September, if practicable, will be a major step. Currently, Air Asia, Korean Air, Thai Airways and Dragon Air are operating wide-body aircraft to Nepal. Similarly, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and the incoming Turkish Airlines plan to operate wide-body aircraft from the beginning of September. “We have come up with three major solutions: limiting aircraft landing and take-off weight to 196 tons, requesting Korean Air to change its flight times as it does not have any alternative to its Boeing 777s, and likewise requesting Thai Airways to use Airbus 330-300 instead of Boeing 777 if possible till the end of September, as measures to prevent further damage to the runway,” said Dinesh Prasad Shrestha, general manager of Tribhuwan International Airport (TIA). CAAN said it will come up with a permanent solution after Ayesa Ingenieria, a Spanish consultant, submits its TIA tarmac evaluation report. Bharat Kumar Shrestha, chairman of AOCN, said that the conclusions of Friday´s meeting will not affect the airlines much and they will also prevent further damage to the tarmac. “A special request has been made to Korean Air and Thai Airways as they have been operating Boeing 777s and their landing time is almost the same, which has been one of the reasons for damage to the tarmac,” said AOCN Chairman Shrestha. CAAN has made a special request to Korean Air to change its flight timing if possible as it does not have an alternative to its Boeing 777s and it is not possible for it to limit its landing weight and take-off weight to 196 tons. According to AOCN, the Boeing 777 operated by Korean Air has a dry weight of 146 tons and when it carries 51 tons of required fuel, the weight increases to 197 tons. Hence, the minimum weight it can maintain is 223 tons provided it carries a total payload of just 26 tons. Likewise, Thai Airways has been requested to change aircraft as it has alternatives to the Boeing 777. AOCN said that as Thai Airway flights to Nepal are of short duration, they can reduce the weight by 15 to 20 tons by refuelling in Kathmandu itself for the return flights. “The request made to wide-body operators on Friday is just a temporary measure and we will come up with a permanent solution once we receive the report from the Spanish consultant by the end of September,” said CAAN general manager Shrestha.