Thai Air Asia penalized for operating flight to Kathmandu sans permission

KATHMANDU: The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has penalized Thai Air Asia for operating a flight to Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu without permission.

The TIA Civil Aviation Office initially denied landing permission for the Airbus A320 aircraft coming from Bangkok. However, it allowed the flight to land after assigning it ‘special chartered flight’ status after it remained in a holding pattern for nearly an hour.

“We permitted the flight to land on humanitarian grounds, considering the safety of passengers,” CAAN Spokesperson Gyanendra Bhul told RSS. “We have canceled all its permissions. The airline’s general sales agent in Kathmandu has also been terminated.”

According to Bhul, the aircraft will return to Bangkok with passengers later on Sunday.

Thai Air Asia had only received permission to fly to Kathmandu until October 27.

Thai Air Asia had started flying to Kathmandu on October 2.