Travellers stranded in Nepalgunj airport for lack of air tickets

The numbers of passengers is swelling at Nepalgunj airport with only two days left for Bijaya Dashami, the last day of the 10 days long Bada Dashain festival, the biggest festival of the Nepalis.

However, many people are not getting the air tickets as the number of flights to various destinations is far too less than the number of passengers seeking to go home for the festival by air. Therefore, it looks like many people will not be getting air tickets and would be left stranded.

The passengers have been complaining that the airlines companies have been issuing tickets giving priority to people with high connections.

Dolpa and Humla districts of the Karnali province do not have road connectivity. Although Jumla and Mugu of Karnali province and Bajura of Far-west province have road connectivity, transport service is not regular and reliable. Hence, the people of these districts mainly rely on air transport for travel.

Travellers to these districts in the mountainous region have been facing problem especially during the festival time due to the shortage of adequate number of flights.

Usually the people who have connections to the top political leaders and ministers get the air tickets while those without such advantage are left in the lurch, said Surendra Shahi of Mugu, who has been struggling to get plane ticket to Mugu for the last one week.

Chief of the Nepalgunj Civil Aviation Office, Prem Nath Thakur, said that this situation is because the number of flights is very less compared to the number of passengers seeking air tickets.

According to him, Tara and Summit Air have been operating daily one flight each to Dolpa, Mugu, Humla, Jumla and Bajura. The Sita Air's plane is said to be currently out of order whereas the Nepal Airlines has started operating its flights to these places only from Sunday. Tara and Summit Air have only one airplane based in Nepalgunj and they have been operating daily one flight to each of the above destinations.