India positive, but to tread cautiously on Nepal's request for new routes to save its airports built by China

As Nepal sought India’s help to ensure the economic viability of its two new airports built by China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured his counterpart, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, that New Delhi would positively consider approving more air routes for entry and exit of aircraft to and from the neighbouring country.

New Delhi, however, will tread cautiously, given its security concerns, as approving new routes for international flights leaving the two airports from Nepal will require opening up India's airspace close to its border with China, including a portion currently under the control of the Indian Air Force.

“Nepal welcomes India’s positive indication (on the issue) of air entry routes for bilateral flights, which is operationally feasible for ATR aircraft,” Dahal said as he and Modi addressed media-persons after a meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Thursday. He, however, noted that Kathmandu had also requested New Delhi for approval for an additional high-altitude entry route so that carriers could deploy larger aircraft for regular flights to and from the Gautam Buddha International Airport at Bhairahawa and the Pokhara International Airport in Nepal.

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The Modi-Dahal meeting saw Kathmandu prodding New Delhi to allow additional routes for aircraft to fly through the airspace of India to and from the new international airports in Nepal.

The issue has been on the agenda of discussion in the bilateral engagements between New Delhi and Kathmandu in the past too. India, however, has been treading cautiously on the request from Nepal, apparently due to security concerns.

“Air connectivity...and how best to intensify as also expand the connectivity between India and Nepal definitely came up for discussion,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told journalists after the meeting between the two prime ministers. “There are many elements in it. There are elements of connectivity between different cities of India and different cities of Nepal. There is also a question of connectivity among different cities of Nepal through different air routes.”

He also said India would consider all broad-level issues and specific issues of air connectivity with Nepal would be considered in “a positive frame of reference” and the technical experts of the two sides would now sit down and look at each of the proposals on the table and would proceed forward to an appropriate decision.

“These are questions which require extensive technical examination because you do get into airspace and, at some points, the airspace is under the domains wherein it interferes into the space, which is commanded by the air force,” said the foreign secretary, adding: “There are several other elements which are really important for the technical experts to examine.”

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New Delhi has been concerned over China’s persistent bid to spread its geopolitical influence over Nepal and build strategic assets in the country, not only elbowing out but also posing a security threat to India.

The $ 76 million Gautam Buddha International Airport at Bhairahawa in Nepal was funded by the Asian Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development but was constructed by the Northwest Civil Aviation Airport Construction Group of China. It was inaugurated in May 2022. The Export-Import Bank of China provided Nepal with a soft loan of $ 215 million to build the Pokhara International Airport, which was constructed by the communist country’s CAMC Engineering Company Limited and was inaugurated on January 1 this year.

The two were envisaged as Nepal’s second and third international airports after the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. But neither the airport in Bhairahawa nor the one in Pokhara could take off. No carrier is at present operating any international flight to and from the two airports, which may soon prove to be economically unviable.

One of the reasons for the reluctance of the carriers to operate international flights from the two airports is the lack of cross-border air routes between Nepal and India.

Kathmandu is pressing New Delhi hard to rework the 2009 bilateral air services agreement to provide for more cross-border entry and exit routes between Nepal and India – over Janakpur, Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj and Mahendranagar. It has also sought New Delhi’s nod to make the existing L626 route over Mahendranagar bidirectional. India at present allows the use of the route only for international flights exiting Nepal.