Bharatpur Airport guide

Bharatpur Airport is a domestic airport in Chitwan District, in the Terai plains of south-central Nepal. It sits about 1.6 km southwest of the centre of Bharatpur and is the main air gateway to Chitwan National Park. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal operates it for the Government of Nepal.

The field was built in 1958 with US government assistance as part of a resettlement and malaria control programme. The first passenger flight landed on 5 March 1965. Operations stopped from 1981 to 1985 because of political instability in southern Nepal. A new terminal and a paved runway for medium-sized aircraft followed in 2005.

The single runway, 15/33, is 1,158 m long and 30 m wide, and the airfield sits at about 180 m elevation. It handles turboprops such as the ATR 42 and the Beech 1900. Buddha Air flies to Kathmandu, Pokhara and Siddharthanagar, and Guna Airlines serves Kathmandu and Pokhara. The Kathmandu flight takes about 20 minutes. A new terminal building had its foundation stone laid in 2023, and plans to lengthen the runway to 1,600 m depend on acquiring adjoining land.