Where the hell is the plane?

Six years after building a runway, an airplane carried out a test flight to the mountainous district of Manang on September 13. Summit Air, a private airline company, had conducted the test flight. Chief Minister of Gandaki Province, Prithvi Subba Gurung, and Provin­cial Minister for Industry, Tourism and Environment, Bikash Lamsal, both of whom were on the test flight, vowed regular flights would start on September 27.

“We looked at the sky all day long on September 27 awaiting an airplane, but none arrived,” says Chyungda Gurung from Humde in Manang. “We have been hear­ing for three months that there will be regular flights. Where are they?” she asks. The unfulfilled promise has left the locals like her bitterly disappointed.

Kanchha Ghale, chairper­son of Manang Ngisyang Rural Municipality, says this is not the first time the peo­ple of Manang have been duped. Earlier, too, they had been promised flights from Humde. Minister Lamsal had said regular flights, target­ing Domestic Tourism Year 2019 and Visit Nepal 2020, would soon be operated—tono avail.

Binod Gurung, President of Manang Tourism Manage­ment Committee, says tour­ists, including those without much time to spend here, have also been deprived of an opportunity to fly to Manang. Over 250 tourists visit Manang every day, most of them via Pokhara. “It would have been better if the authorities had said they could not do it,” adds Gurung.

Minister Lamsal claims efforts are still being made to start regular flights to Manang. “There were various reasons our efforts did not succeed. We are still discussing the plan,” he says. “We have held discussions with Summit Air and Nepal Airlines, the national flag carrier.”

In December 2013, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal had blacktopped the run­way at a cost of Rs 90 mil­lion. A 600-meter runway was extended to 900 meters. Following the blacktopping, several ministers and CAAN officials had flown to the Humde airport as part of an inspection visit. But the airport has remained closedsince 2013.

Two years after the runway was blacktopped, a Dornier aircraft of Tara Air conducted a test flight to Manang. But no subsequent flights have been seen. More recently, preparations for starting flights were made on Janu­ary 9 and July 5. But nothing came of them either. Before the runway was blacktopped, Nepal Airlines used to oper­ate regular flights to Manang, twice a week.

Flights to and from Humde started in July 1982. Back then, two regular flights used to be operated every week from Humde. Locals say that flights stopped when a road track to Manang opened.

A flight from Pokhara to Manang takes around 25 minutes. CAAN’s air traffic controller Surya Baha­dur Khatri says planes can­not fly to Manang in snowy or rainy weather.