By Uncover Nepal Team · Checked by our Kathmandu travel team · Last checked 27 October 2026
The plane drops towards a strip of asphalt that climbs uphill in front of it, touches down and stops inside a runway only 527 m long. Outside the fence, porters wait for the duffel bags while trekkers pull on a fleece. For most people walking to Everest Base Camp, this is where the trek begins.
Lukla airport, officially Tenzing-Hillary Airport, is the small mountain airstrip at 2,846 m (9,337 ft) where most Everest treks start. Flights take about 25 to 30 minutes from Kathmandu or 15 to 20 minutes from Ramechhap, most leave in the morning, and they stop whenever cloud or wind hides the runway from the pilots.
If you are walking to Base Camp, our Everest Base Camp trek page shows how the flight days fit into the route. This guide covers where your flight leaves from this autumn, why delays happen, what to do when flights are cancelled, baggage and the honest safety picture.
Key facts
- Official name and codes
- Tenzing-Hillary Airport; ICAO VNLK, IATA LUA (AIP Nepal (CAAN), 30 Apr 2026, 15 Oct 2026)
- Airstrip elevation
- 2,846 m (9,337 ft); older documents give 2,845 m (AIP Nepal (CAAN), amended 30 Apr 2026, 15 Oct 2026)
- Runway
- 527 m x 20 m, with an 11.7% upslope (AIP Nepal (CAAN), 30 Apr 2026, 15 Oct 2026)
- Flight rules
- Visual Flight Rules: pilots must see the runway to land (CAAN airport profile, 15 Oct 2026)
- Flight time
- About 25 to 30 min from Kathmandu; 15 to 20 min from Ramechhap (CAAN-filed airline schedules, Apr to Jun 2026, 15 Oct 2026)
- Airlines
- Tara Air, Sita Air, Summit Air (CAAN-filed schedules 2026; Kantipur, 4 Oct 2026, 15 Oct 2026)
- Busy-season departures
- Manthali airport, Ramechhap, about 130 km by road from Kathmandu (Kantipur, 4 Oct 2026; OnlineKhabar, 23 Sep 2022, 15 Oct 2026)
- Baggage (Tara Air)
- 10 kg checked plus 5 kg hand luggage (Tara Air terms and conditions, 27 Oct 2026)
Where is Lukla airport, and why is it called Tenzing-Hillary Airport?
Lukla airport sits in Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality, Solukhumbu district, in the buffer zone of Sagarmatha National Park. The government renamed it Tenzing-Hillary Airport in February 2008, after Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary, and named the trail from Lukla to Everest Base Camp the Tenzing-Hillary Route at the same time.
The airstrip is older. Edmund Hillary built it in 1964 through his Himalayan Trust, to bring in supplies for the Trust's schools and hospital work. As the Nepali Times put it, Sherpa and Sherpani dancers "were mobilised to compact the ground with their stomping steps". Without it, the approach is long: the Kathmandu Post puts the walk from Jiri to Surke, just below Lukla, at 12 days.
How high is Lukla airport?
Lukla airport's airstrip is at 2,846 m (9,337 ft), according to CAAN's Aeronautical Information Publication, last amended on 30 April 2026. Older documents give 2,845 m. You will also see 2,786 m quoted: that is the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) Lukla weather station, not the airstrip.
Altitude sickness can start from about 2,450 m, so you land already above that line. The basic rules start at the plane steps:
- Go up slowly: above about 3,000 m, add no more than about 500 m of sleeping height a night, plus an extra night for every 1,000 m.
- Walk slowly, drink water and avoid alcohol early on.
- Know the symptoms, never go higher with them, and go down if they get worse.
- Ask your doctor before the trip about preventive medicine such as acetazolamide.
Our altitude sickness guide explains the symptoms and what your guide does about them.
Why do Lukla flights get delayed or cancelled?
Lukla runs on Visual Flight Rules: pilots must see the runway to land, and need to see the airport from some distance before they commit. Fog, low cloud and strong wind at Lukla stop fixed-wing flights. The runway is short and steep, there is no refuelling, and the planes are small, which leaves little room for poor conditions.
Most flights are scheduled in the morning, because afternoon wind and cloud often stop them. Ramechhap's published hours are mornings only, 06:00 to 12:15 Nepal time from mid-February to mid-November.
Holds can last days. Flights from Manthali to Lukla were stopped for five days in October 2023, with about 200 flights postponed; Lukla was closed for 10 days in June 2024, and for three days at the start of November 2025.
The season sets the odds: about 84% of the Lukla station's yearly precipitation falls from June to September.
| Lukla weather station (2,786 m), DHM 1991 to 2020 | Mean daily high | Mean daily low | Precipitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| July | 18.4 °C | 13.2 °C | 529.8 mm |
| October | 16.8 °C | 7.4 °C | 102.9 mm |
| November | 13.8 °C | 2.4 °C | 6.2 mm |
November is far drier, but holds still happen: the three-day closure in 2025 came at the start of November. Our guide to the best time for the Everest Base Camp trek compares the seasons.
Why do Lukla flights leave from Ramechhap?
In the busiest months, most fixed-wing Lukla flights leave from Manthali airport in Ramechhap rather than Kathmandu, to ease congestion at Kathmandu's airport. In autumn 2026 the Manthali flights restarted on 29 September, as Kantipur reported. Flights may leave from Kathmandu or Ramechhap (Manthali) depending on the season and the airline: check your ticket.
The move began on 1 April 2019, while Kathmandu's runway was being renovated, and CAAN kept using Ramechhap in busy seasons; it paused during Covid and restarted in late September 2022. "The flights were operated smoothly in this season," Rajan Pokharel, then officiating Director General of CAAN, told The Himalayan Times after the first season.
There is no fixed public calendar: we found no CAAN notice online setting the autumn 2026 dates. Kantipur reports that the autumn Manthali season runs until around the start of December.
| From Kathmandu | From Ramechhap (Manthali) | |
|---|---|---|
| Flight time to Lukla | About 25 to 30 min | About 15 to 20 min |
| Getting to the airport | In the city | About 130 km by road, usually 4 to 5 hours |
| Airport | Kathmandu domestic terminal | 495 m (1,624 ft); runway 580 m x 20 m |
| Foreign one-way fare, as operators report (fares from early August 2026) | About USD 253 to 255 | About USD 208 to 210 |
Three airlines fly the route: Tara Air (Twin Otter), Sita Air (Dornier 228) and Summit Air (Let L-410). We found no airline page or CAAN document that publishes the US-dollar fare, so treat the figures above as a guide; fares change, so check with the airline. Our Everest Base Camp trek cost breakdown shows how the flight fits the whole budget.
Getting to Manthali
Because the airport works mornings only, trekking companies usually collect guests from Kathmandu hotels in the small hours; some groups stay overnight near the airport instead.
- Check your ticket the day before for the departure airport and the reporting time your airline or guide gives you.
- Ask about the road. The BP Highway has been cut by floods several times, and in October 2024 a detour took at least eight hours.
- Arrive by the reporting time. On Sita Air and Summit Air, missing check-in makes you a no-show, with no refund.
What should you do when your Lukla flight is cancelled?
When weather cancels your Lukla flight, stay with your guide and wait for the airline's next available flight. What happens to your ticket depends on the airline's own rules. Spare days in your plan turn a cancellation into a slow morning rather than a missed flight home, so build them in before you book anything else.
"Unless the weather improves, there is nothing one can do."
Pemba Sherpa, managing director, 8K Expeditions, The Himalayan Times, 11 October 2023
Step by step:
- Build in buffer days before you travel. Leave spare days between the end of the trek and your international flight. Holds of three, five and 10 days have happened in recent years.
- On the day, stay with your guide. Your guide follows the airline's updates for you.
- Know the ticket terms. Tara Air's terms say a ticket is fully refunded if the airline cancels it because of weather or technical issues. If you cancel yourself, Sita Air and Summit Air charge 10% of the fare more than 24 hours ahead and 33.33% on the day.
- Expect a rush when it clears. On 6 October 2025, Lukla handled about 300 plane and helicopter flights and about 1,600 arriving trekkers in one day. In 2024, long holds left more than 1,000 trekkers waiting in Manthali.
- Consider a shared helicopter seat. Helicopters can fly Kathmandu to Lukla directly; operators report a shared seat at about USD 500 to 710 one way (operator pages checked 27 October 2026), depending on season, load and direction. They are weather-limited too, and some land at Surke, a little below Lukla, in bad weather.
- Know the road option. A dirt road has reached Surke since 4 January 2025, with jeeps and buses from Salleri. Salleri to Surke took about 8 hours in early 2025. When Lukla was closed in 2024, some trekkers walked three to four hours down to the road at Thamdanda.
- Check your insurance before you leave home for trip delay, missed connections and helicopter evacuation at your trekking altitude.
The day plan on our Everest Base Camp trek experience page shows where a spare day fits.
What is the baggage allowance on Lukla flights?
Tara Air publishes a free allowance of 10 kg checked baggage plus 5 kg hand luggage on US-dollar and Indian fares, and 7 kg for children under 12. We found no kilogram figure on Sita Air's or Summit Air's websites, so check your own airline's limit before you pack; excess baggage is charged.
- Use a soft duffel for checked baggage and leave spare kit at your Kathmandu hotel.
- Carry valuables, medicines and documents in your daypack: Summit Air limits its checked-baggage liability to the equivalent of USD 20 per kg.
Is Lukla airport safe?
Lukla airport is demanding for physical reasons: a short, sloping runway, visual-only approaches and fast-changing mountain weather. The main safety control is simple and strict: when pilots cannot see the runway, flights do not go. That is why delays are common, and why you should plan around them rather than push against them.
The record includes fatal accidents:
- 8 October 2008: Yeti Airlines Flight 101, a Twin Otter, crashed on final approach in poor visibility, killing 18 of the 19 people on board; the captain survived.
- 14 April 2019: a Summit Air Let L-410 veered off the runway on take-off for Ramechhap and hit two parked helicopters; three people died. Investigators found an abrupt rearward movement of the right power lever, and the crew did not abort the take-off.
All airlines certified in Nepal have been on the EU Air Safety List since December 2013, because of inadequate safety oversight, and the June 2026 update kept Nepal there. The list concerns regulatory oversight and EU airspace, not any single flight inside Nepal. The government set mid-January 2027 as its deadline for splitting the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal into a separate regulator and service provider, a step towards removal, but in October 2026 the Kathmandu Post reported that the bills needed had stalled and the deadline could not be met. Some insurers refer to the list, so read your policy wording.
Read next: Tengboche Monastery guide, Gokyo Lakes guide, Everest helicopter tour cost, arriving at Kathmandu airport and Everest Base Camp trek difficulty.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Lukla airport considered dangerous?
Lukla airport is demanding because its runway is short and steep, 527 m long with an 11.7% upslope, and pilots can land only when they see it. Mountain cloud and wind change fast, and fatal accidents happened in 2008 and 2019. Flights stop when visibility is poor, which is why delays are common.
How long is the flight to Lukla?
The flight to Lukla takes about 25 to 30 minutes from Kathmandu and 15 to 20 minutes from Ramechhap, on the airlines' CAAN-filed schedules. In the busiest months most flights leave from Ramechhap, 4 to 5 hours' drive from Kathmandu. The flight is short; the early start and any weather wait take longer.
What happens if my Lukla flight is cancelled?
Ask for the airline's next available flight, usually through your guide; what happens to your ticket depends on the airline's own rules. Keep spare days before your flight home, and consider a shared helicopter seat if a hold drags on and helicopters can fly. Check your insurance for delay cover before you travel.
What is the baggage limit on Lukla flights?
Tara Air's published allowance is 10 kg checked baggage plus 5 kg hand luggage, and 7 kg for children under 12. We found no kilogram figure on the other airlines' websites, so check yours with the airline. Excess baggage is charged, so leave spare kit at your Kathmandu hotel.
Can you drive to Lukla?
Not quite. Since January 2025 a dirt road has reached Surke, just below Lukla airport, with jeeps and buses from Salleri. Salleri to Surke took about 8 hours in early 2025, and Kathmandu to Salleri is about 270 km more. It is a long, rough journey: useful in a long hold, not a fast alternative.
How far is Ramechhap from Kathmandu?
Manthali airport in Ramechhap is about 130 km from Kathmandu by road, and the drive usually takes 4 to 5 hours. The airport opens only in the morning, so pick-ups are usually in the small hours. Floods have cut the BP Highway several times, so check the road the evening before.
Planning your flight into Everest
If you want help fitting the flight days, the Ramechhap transfer and spare days into your plan, message us on WhatsApp or send an enquiry from our Everest Base Camp trek page. Tell us your dates and we will tell you honestly how much time to allow.
