CAAN Souvenir 2010.FH10 - Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal

CAAN Souvenir 2010Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, NepalAirlines, Dragon Air, Yeti Airlines, China Southern, Air HongKong among other prospective air carriers.Coordination with ICAO and relevant countries has beenintensified at the Ministry and organizational level. We arealso in process of finalizing the Kathmandu-Lhasa B345 Routeupto Beijing and Shanghai in the context of the signing ofLoA with China on ATS Coordination procedure. The L626Kathmandu - Mahendra Nagar - Pantanagar - Delhi routehas been established and operational siince the implementationof Remote Control Air Ground (RCAG) VHF station atNepalgunj which was under constant effort to facilitate thethe L626 route and provide full VHF communication coveragethrough Nepal.The Himalaya 1 Route (ref. to the end of paragraph),supplemented by existing Route L 507 (Bangkok - Kolkata -Nepalgunj)-Indek will not only ease the traffic flow over Delhibut also improve the bottleneck over Afghanistan. Pakistanhad formally agreed this route to be promulgated as a bidirectional route. In the same way Himalaya 2 Route, ifestablished will be the shortest route from Hong Kong toKathmandu and vice versa. Distance of existing KathmanduHong Kong Route via Bangladesh is 1770 NM whereas theproposed Route is only 1669 NM via Imphal. So it is less by101 NM. But distance can be further reduced by 35 NM,if direct routing from Kunming to Kathmandu could bematerialized. This route if connected to L626 and be extendedup to Delhi, ultimately benefit directly to more than a dozenairlines, operating schedule flights to/from Hong Kong toKathmandu, Delhi and several other destinations to MiddleEast like Sarjah, Dubai, Riyadh, Doha, Abudhabi etc.The above proposed routes particularly the Himalayan 2Route is viable, economically beneficial to the airlines andthe States, which will directly support ICAO and the aviationcommunities for the environment protection with less carbonemission. Therefore, Nepal requires support and cooperationof the Government of India, Government of China and theoperating airlines for their implementation.With strong projected gross domestic product (GDP) growthrates and rising per capita income in China and India andunprecedented air traffic growth in the recent years in thetwo countries has opened a new prospect of Trans HimalayanRoute. Lhasa – Kathmandu – Lucknow (B 345), over flyingMount Everest. From Lhasa this route is further extended toBeijing and Sanghai as B 213. Nepal has proposed this routeto be extended to Delhi and beyond as follows:i. Beijing - Chengdu - Lhasa - Kathmandu - Delhi (Two Way). OrBeijing – Lanzhou – Lhasa – Kathmandu – Delhi (twoway)ii. Shanghai - Chengdu - Lhasa - Kathmandu - Delhi (TwoWay).These routes have been identified as the shortest possibleroutes for the flights to/from mainland China and far eastand to Middle East/Europe via Nepal and Indian subcontinent. In this regard China has given concurrence forairline operation between Kathmandu and Shanghai/Beijingvia Chengdu/Lhasa- Kathmandu (B213 and B345). Inconcurrence of China, this Trans Himalayan Route can beextended up to Seoul as a direct and shortest route fromDelhi and Kathmandu.3Himalaya 1 and 212 th Anniversary Publication