It was understandable that 10 May 2023, despite being a clear afternoon, aircraft opted not to land on runway‘02’ as they usually did, and the tailwind was beyond safe operational limit that day. Even narrow bodies chose to hold while some opted to divert sooner. One, wide-body was low on fuel and intended to divert after thirteenth laps. But it was worse this year with Qatari flight QTR646 having completed 25 laps attained second position on FR24’s “unofficial “world holding ranking on 05 March. Unable to land it headed to Dhaka and returned the following afternoon. The unfavorable situation was the outcome of over 20 knots wind that blew from south to north or parallel to the runway orientation here. Since identifying Kathmandu airport runway ends (02/20) at times confuses even the professionals, I have taken the liberty to refer ‘02’ as ‘Se’(South-end) and ‘20’ as ‘Ne’ (North-end) for the sake of understanding.

Meteorologically, the prevailing upheaval signifies approaching summer with winter coming to its fag end. The period, termed by pilots as “mad March’, is typically characterised by unpredictable strong surface wind with airlines passengers likely to face fair amount of flight turbulence. Kathmandu’s image, which is already tarnished by perennial long holdings and poor facilities, was made worse by wind related hold ups compelling airlines to divert. Everyone hates diversion, it creates big hassle for both travellers, personally, and to the carriers. Airlines have to bear the costs of accommodation at both ends, besides pay various ancillary expenses for landing, parking and fuel. It becomes even more taxing for airline staffs at the receiving end for having to bear with visibly angry travellers.

Ideally, aircraft land and take-off against the wind. But that is seldom possible and it is even more difficult for an airport with a single runway. Naturally, airports with more runways can cope better by switching runways. Strong tailwind is taken seriously as it, not just, increases the ground speed, but also, the rate of descent. Both are not good for landing. That beside, strong tailwind makes aircraft eat more runways and worse, can lead to serious runway excursion if the landing gets jinxed. The need for caution is quite apparent as the terrain, beyond the runway end ‘Ne’, slopes down steeply to Bagmati below.

Landing from ‘Se’following terrain based VOR/DME approach is popular because of its “straight in” nature and quite a few airlines still follow it. The RNP for ‘Se’, on the other hand, comes with shallow turns, as it is channeled through the Bagmati gorge which offers lower flying. As such, Satellite based system is taken to be better and more reliable. As for landing from ‘Ne’,first, it had no navaids to facilitate landings, and making visual approach was difficult because it involved making very tight 180º turn to align quickly with the fast approaching runway. No wonder, airlines waited for the tailwind to die down in such situation.

The RNP for ‘Ne’was published on 19 May 2022, but no airline bothered to show any interest in it. It was on RA’s interest and initiative that instrument arrival/departures was designed in 1972.And it was again expected that RA would take the lead in adopting the new RNP(‘Ne’) too. Sadly, nothing of that sort happened, possibly because current RA management, presumably deep in the “morass of mismanagement” of all sorts, has no time for such “non-issues”.

I had asked a compatriot pilot, who has been captaining wide-bodies since quite few years with a renowned airline elsewhere, about the apparent disdain for the RNP (‘Ne’) among airlines. And this is what he said in reply: “Landing on ‘Ne’is challenging, we used to do it with B757 during the day time. For wide-body it’s not advisable. The crews of wide-body aircraft will need lot of training hours in the simulator. I have done it in the sim with B787. For foreign carrier I wouldn’t recommend landing there as they are not familiar with the terrain and procedures.”

It is a common saying that one can take a horse to the water but can’t make it drink. So the RNP approach for ‘Ne’ was a virgin until the 8th of March, when a Qatari Airways B787 made its first ever landing on runway ‘Ne’ following the RNP, surprising everyone beyond belief.

I happened to be watching accidentally at that instant, and had assumed that the flight was on its usual RNP (‘Se’) approach. But as it kept flying low and continued heading to the north-east sector of the valley than the usual, I assumed that the visibility was the issue and it was probably making a very “unusual” go around. But it was not doing anything of that sort, and continued descending lower until it appeared to have landed. Only after its speed slowed down to about 80 knots did I realised that it had indeed created the unthinkable by landing from ‘Ne’. The B787 had not even reached the other end of the runway to turn around, I posted the screen shot in Tweeter with the news. While, oblivious to the importance of this landing, our media was still engrossed with the incident of nose wheel loss at Janakpur. Cannot blame them, as neither Qatar Airways, nor CAAN for that matter, issued any press release explaining the significance of landing from north.

As it could not be an impromptu action on impulse, Qatari was obviously making preparations quietly, especially as it was rumoured to have effectively barred landing from north here. The pain and costs of having to endure inordinately long holding that was compounded by having to divert seem to have finally made the legendary horse thirsty. Now that the non-adaptability of RNP for ‘Ne’ is broken by a wide-body, we hope that others will also be bold enough to adopt it gradually. It will be a bigger shame if RA continues with its current folly. By this flip, the Qatari has effectively turned the tails wind of “disadvantage” to head wind of “advantage”. That beside, use of both north and south runways will also help Kathmandu airport become more efficient now that works to connect both runway ends by taxiways is in full swing. Thanks are due to, not just, ‘mad March ‘for its unpredictable winds, but also, to Qatar Airways for finally breaking the ‘20’ myth.

Hemant Arjyal can be reached at harjyal@yahoo.com