Gautam Buddha Airport
Gautam Buddha Airport, also known as Bhairahawa Airport, is a domestic airport located in Siddharthanagar serving the Butwal﹣Bhairahawa urban agglomeration, as well as Lumbini in Province No. 5 in Nepal. It is currently being upgraded to international standards. Construction is scheduled to be completed by December 2020. The airport will become Nepal's second international airport.History
Gautam Buddha Airport was opened in 1958 and has since been operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal. In 1985, the airport was one of the targets of the Nepal Bombings.Expansion
In 2015, construction began to turn the airport into Nepal's second international airport in order to relieve the congested Tribhuvan International Airport. It is planned to have a runway and sixteen international parking bays. The project is financed by a loan and grant aid from the Asian Development Bank. The contract to upgrade the airport was awarded to the Chinese company Northwest Civil Aviation Airport Construction Group in October 2014. The construction of the airport was set to be completed by the end of 2017 but the process was delayed for more than six months and the deadline of the completion was extended to 2019 due to the 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 2015 Nepal blockade. In July 2019, the project's deadline was extended and the expansion was expected to be completed by December 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal, the opening of the airport was postponed to March 2021 in July 2020.Facilities
The airport is at an elevation of above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 10/28 with an asphalt surface measuring.Airlines and destinations
Incidents and accidents
