Aircraft taxiing at Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal, in Kathmandu

From the archive record

An aircraft taxiing at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Nepal. Tribhuvan International Airport is an international airport in Kathmandu, Nepal. The airport is about six kilometres from the city centre, in the Kathmandu valley. It is the sole international airport in Nepal, though Nijgadh International Airport has been proposed as a second. The airport served as an airfield since 1949, and was inaugurated in 1955 by King Mahendra. It received its current name in 1964. Originally a grass runway, it was re-laid in concrete in 1957 and has been extended several times. The first jet aircraft landed at Tribhuvan in 1967 and regular jet operations commenced in 1972. The airport has one domestic and one international terminal. In 2015, the airport handled 3.21 million passengers, down 8.37%