The main purpose of my trip to Nepal was to go on safari in the flatter south of the country. I’m not fit enough to go trekking in high altitude, which is what most visitors to the country do. But there was no way I was going to pass on the chance to see the Himalayas, Everest in particular!  Several of Nepal’s small independent airlines offer early morning flights from Kathmandu (KTM), flying due east with the spectacular mountains on the port side, until level with Everest, before turning back around to KTM, with the mountains on the starboard side. It’s a one hour flight. And although the airlines’ websites call these flights “Everest Express” or “Everest Experience”, at the airport ones sees they’re all just referred to as (the less romantic) “Mountain Flight” on the departure boards.

I chose to book with Yeti Airlines at www.yetiairlines.com, for US$160 each, but for similar prices you could fly with Simrik, Buddha Airlines and others. I chose Yeti because, as an aviation enthusiast, I wanted the smallest plane possible for the journey, and they use a 29 passenger seat British Aerospace Jetstream J41 on the route. The plane is small, but it’s pressurised for flying at high altitude. And of course the airlines don’t offer a business class, but in a small plane everyone is close to the pointy end!

All of these flights take place early in the morning (departing KTM between 6 and 7am), when visibility over the Himalayas is supposed to be at its best. I’d also chosen to go to Nepal in December because guide books suggested it was the month with the clearest skies and the best for trekking.

We arrived at the domestic terminal of KTM at 05:40, for our 06:30 flight. It was still dark and the cab journey through the deserted streets of the normally chaotic city was romantic and surreal. In a side street we saw a man butchering a goat.  Apart from a chill in the air, the weather was fine.  The doors to the terminal were still shut and there was a queue of ‘serious’ trekkers with lots of kit, presumably heading off towards Everest or the Annapurna range. When the terminal doors were opened at 05:50 we went through a security check but found the Yeti Airlines desk still unmanned. But at 06:10 we were first in the queue and got seats 1A and 1C, the two front row window seats. We passed through another security check and into the large, cold, austere departure lounge, which reminded me of an old soviet-era airport: it really was cold, the limited number of metal seats were cold, and broken glass windows were letting in the filthy old diesel smoke of the buses and other vehicles warming up on the ramp outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It transpired that our 06:30 flight had been rescheduled to 06:45, so we grabbed a coffee from the shop and watched as they called the first flight, to Lukla, the nearest airfield to Everest base camp, and most of the serious trekkers disappeared off to board their plane.  But 15minutes later they returned saying they couldn’t take off because of fog!  It seems that morning fog is very common in the Kathmandu Valley and other parts of Nepal in winter.  Definitely not the guaranteed clear skies the guidebooks wrote of! I ventured closer to the broken windows and the polluting diesel fumes and saw that yes indeed a fog had come in and the airport was closed!

One departure board and several semi-comprehensible tannoy announcements told us that further information on our flight would be given at 07:30.  And then it became a creeping delay, with the next update at 08:00, then 08:30, then 09:30.  Over this time the departure hall became increasingly crowded, with many resorting to sitting on the hard, cold floor. Keeping hold of my cold, uncomfortable,  metal seat became a mission for survival. If one of us got up to go to the horribly smelly toilet, or to try to get something to eat, the other had to beat away the vultures who circled looking for a seat.

All of a sudden they started calling flights at 0930 and we got on an antique bus waiting behind the Gate 1 doorway, which drove us a few minutes to a very crowded domestic airlines ramp, full of mostly propellor planes waiting for clearance to get on their way. We entered the Jetstream J41, registration 9N-AIH from its front door and its own fitted steps.

The cabin has a 1-2 seat layout over ten rows, and only the A and C seats had been allocated, so everyone had a window seat. But to my horror I found that 1A’s window was behind my shoulder, so I moved next to Mr A, thinking I’d get a better view from there.  Engine start-up and taxiing began before we knew it; even before the single Flight Attendant (FA) had given our safety briefing.  The J41 is very noisy inside, but I found that the noise is worst in front of, or level with, the propellors.  Although seat allocation appeared to be done in the order of checking in, try, if you can, to get a seat from row 4 up, where the cabin is noticeably less noisy, though not quiet.  The FA handed out cotton wool for the ears and hard sweets to suck upon, to those who wanted them.

Following our taxi to the runway threshold, the Jetstream roared up its two turboprop engines and set off on a relatively long and fast take-off run. I guess it needs a long fast run to get airborne in the thin air of KTM, but more modern planes seem to fair better.

Once airborne we climbed as swiftly as the airframe would allow, and set course for our goal. The FA handed out a paper photo of all the mountains we would be passing and explained that those on the port/left side would see the mountains on the outbound routing, and those on the starboard/right side would see them on the way back to KTM. On the outbound leg the right side passengers were invited to visit the cockpit and the left sitters got to go there on the way back.  All very fair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was first into the cockpit to see the two pilots. They pointed to Everest in the distance, but its peak was covered in cloud. In truth it’s hard to fully appreciate how high the Himalaya are because it’s not like you see a huge mountain rising from an open sea-level base, like Fuji in Japan. The base of the mountains is already high above sea level, and there are a lot of them bunched around each other. Everest does not have a famous or memorable profile/silhouette and it doesn’t seem any bigger than summits near-by, so it does help when a more experienced observer points it out to you.  But a lingering wisp of cloud meant that I didn’t actually get to see the summit of the world’s highest mountain.  But I did see most if the mountain, and I saw the magnificence of the Himalaya, with some dramatically steep and high mountains, glaciers and forbidding wilderness, and for those reasons the flight was worth it.

On the way back to KTM the FA handed out certificates signed by the pilots and a small glass of sparkling wine, which they called ‘Champagne’, to the passengers. More than I got on Turkish Airlines business class a day earlier!

Verdict: 8/10 due to facilities at KTM and my poor window seat. (BTW seat 2A had no window at all). But despite the very early start, the cold polluted departure hall and the creeping fog delay, this was a fabulously exciting adventure, which I commend to your bucket list.

Post Script: The discovery of the regularity of December morning fog triggered a lot of anxiety about my further Nepal flight plans. On the next day I had booked to fly early to Lukla and back, just for the experience of flying into and out of what’s regarded as the world’s most dangerous airport, and then to connect to a flight down to my safari in the south. When it eventually sunk in that I wouldn’t make the safari flight if the first two were delayed by fog, I decided to cancel those tickets.  But I was left with the worry that my flight back from safari would be delayed too and I’d miss my connecting flight to Thailand. That worry stayed with me for the rest of my time in Nepal.  I think more or better contingency planning would be needed for my next trip to Nepal.