Nepal Air Tickets – How & How Much

There’s plenty of cheap flights domestically in Nepal. And considering the ground terrain and scary road conditions, an airline ticket is usually an attractive option in Nepal! But I should say, if you have fear of flying the flights can also be a bit scary! Consider overcoming your fear of flying by taking a course before you get to Nepal.

Second point you should know is that air fares differ between locals and foreigners in Nepal, with foreigners having to pay higher air fares than locals. Sucks! But still, the occasional air ticket is reasonably affordable, with typical ticket prices around 100-200 US dollars per flight (for foreigners).

Kathmandu is the natural air travel hub in Nepal, and flights goes daily to popular tourist and trekking destinations such as Pokhara, Jomsom (Annapurna), Lukla (Everest) and Jumla (Dolpo/Dolpa). In high season, most notably in October, you need to book your trip one to two weeks in advance. But I have personally booked a flight 20 minutes before departure, and arrived at the airport 5 minutes before departure, only to find the flight delayed about an hour. Delays are, to say the least, quite common in Nepal! And that's the third point: Expect delays, even for several days if the weather is bad.

Booking your domestic Nepal air ticket online - is unfortunately not always possible directly through these airline web sites. Even exact ticket price information can be out of date, as web sites aren’t updated very frequently. An illustrative example is the state owned (Royal) Nepal Airlines. After the monarchy was abolished in 2006, they officially skipped the ‘Royal’ part of their name, but they haven’t gotten around to updating their web site address yet, now 3 years later!

There’s 5 major domestic airlines in Nepal: (Royal) Nepal Airlines, Buddha Air, Yeti Air, Gorkha Air and Cosmic Air. Booking flights through a Nepal tour agency is usually the way to go. So send them an email and they'll sort it out for you.

Flights in Nepal are usually small 12-seater or 19-seater aircrafts. Some landing strips are of the STOL type – Short Take-Off and Landing. These are typically perched on small semi-horizontal parts of hillsides and can be a bit scary. Examples of the most scary air strips are the ones in Jomsom, Juphal, Taplejung, Tumlingtar and Phaplu.

Lukla Airport Crash
On the 8th October 2008, a small aircraft from Yeti Airlines crashed and burst into flames while attempting to land at Lukla Airport. 18 of 19 people in the plane was killed. They were mostly foreign tourists.

Airplane crashes, and more often helicopter crashes do occur in Nepal from time to time. But so do bus and road accidents. I don’t mean to scare you from flying, and considering the huge number of flights (50 flights in and out of Lukla per day in high season), air travel in Nepal must be considered relatively safe. Again, consider taking a course in overcoming fear of flying before heading out to Nepal.