'Bad Weather Has Delayed Flights But the Situation Is Under Control'

Amid reports that bad weather has affected flight operations at the Tribhuvan International Airport, nepalverifiednewd.com had a brief conversation with Rinji Sherpa, spokesperson for the Tribhuvan International Airport.

No exact numbers
Asked to give us the exact number of flights affected due to bad weather, the TIA spokesperson said they did not have the exact numbers.

Flights delayed, not canceled

When the weather is bad, the airport’s capacity to handle flights diminishes, resulting in delays.

While bad weather has delayed both domestic and international flights, no flight has been canceled (at the TIA) or diverted in the last two days due to bad weather. The airport remains operational till 12 midnight, so delayed flights can take off and land within that time frame. 

There has been not much disturbance on domestic and international sectors on April 6 and 7.

Every airline prepares its programs (scheduling flights) in advance. Say an airlines has scheduled 10 flights for tomorrow. But all of the flights may not happen on schedule due to several factors. Passengers may cancel flights, the origin and/or the destination may experience bad weather and there may be scheduling conflicts with regular and delayed flights taking off at the same time due to bad weather and the lack of passengers, etc. In such cases, airlines merge flights to accommodate passengers (if the seating capacity permits it). This is not called cancellation.

Even when the weather is good, an airlines may not be able to operate all of its planned flights due to several factors like cancellation of flights by passengers.

In the event of delays, airlines merge flights for want of passengers and on account of scheduling conflicts.