The Manthali (Ramechhap) Airport Situation: A Complete 2026 Guide

Almost every Everest Base Camp guide mentions Manthali in a single sentence and moves on. This is the complete version: since 2019, Nepal's Civil Aviation Authority has redirected most spring and autumn Lukla flights away from Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport to Ramechhap Airport (IATA: RHP), also called Manthali after the town it serves, 132 km east of Kathmandu in the Tamakoshi river valley.

• What changed: since 2019, most spring and autumn Lukla flights depart from Ramechhap (Manthali), not Kathmandu.
• Seasons affected: roughly mid-March to mid-May, and late September to late November.
• The drive: 4 to 5 hours on the BP Highway, leaving Kathmandu hotels between 1:30 and 2:00 AM.
• The flight: 15 to 20 minutes to Lukla, against roughly 25 minutes from Kathmandu direct.
• Airlines: Tara Air, Summit Air and Sita Air, all flying STOL aircraft under the same visual flight rules.
• Cancellation risk: still 30 to 40% daily in peak season, since the limiting factor is cloud and wind at Lukla, not the departure airport.
• Facilities: check-in counters and a waiting area. No lounge, no WiFi, no heating, and no real refreshments.

Manthali Airport is a domestic-only airstrip that exists almost exclusively to relieve pressure on Tribhuvan's single, over-committed runway during the two Everest trekking seasons.

The Manthali relocation is a seasonal rerouting of scheduled Lukla flights, active roughly mid-March to mid-May and late September to late November, that trades a longer, earlier ground transfer for materially fewer weather-related cancellations once in the air.

Why Kathmandu stopped being the departure point

Tribhuvan International Airport handles Nepal's entire international and domestic traffic on one runway. During peak trekking season, prioritising internationally scheduled jets pushes small STOL (short takeoff and landing) aircraft like those flying to Lukla down the queue, creating exactly the kind of backlog covered in the Lukla flight cancellation guide. Shifting Lukla-bound traffic to Ramechhap's dedicated domestic strip removes that queuing conflict entirely: Ramechhap's mountain-facing visual flight window tends to open earlier and stay clearer for longer than Kathmandu's, letting all three operating airlines run multiple back-to-back rotations in a single morning.

What the morning actually looks like

Trekkers typically leave their Kathmandu hotel between 1:30 and 2:00 AM for the 4 to 5 hour drive east on the BP Highway, a winding mountain road that makes the 132 km distance far slower than it sounds on a map. Some operators arrange an overnight stay in Ramechhap itself the night before instead, trading the pre-dawn wake-up for a less comfortable overnight stop closer to the airstrip. Either way, this affects virtually every standard spring and autumn Everest Base Camp booking; it is the default, not an edge case.

The flight itself, once airborne, is short: 15 to 20 minutes from Ramechhap to Lukla, versus roughly 25 minutes on the rare Kathmandu-direct departures still occasionally scheduled outside peak windows.

Who operates the route

Three airlines fly the Ramechhap-Lukla corridor: Tara Air, Summit Air, and Sita Air, using small twin-engine STOL aircraft, principally the Twin Otter DHC-6, the Dornier 228, and the Let L-410. All three operate under the same visual-flight-rules constraints, so weather affects every carrier equally; switching airlines doesn't meaningfully change your odds of a delay.

Does the cancellation risk disappear at Ramechhap?

Even from Manthali, Lukla flights still face a 30 to 40% daily cancellation or delay rate in peak season, since the limiting factor is cloud and wind at Tenzing-Hillary Airport's Lukla end, not the departure airport. Building at least two buffer days into your Kathmandu schedule, ideally at the trip's end, remains standard risk management for the whole route regardless of which airport you depart from. See the full guide to what happens if your flight is cancelled for the rebooking process itself.

How can you avoid the Manthali transfer entirely?

Trekkers who'd rather skip the pre-dawn drive altogether have three real alternatives: charter a helicopter directly from Kathmandu, from roughly USD 1,200 per person shared four ways, drive the Salleri and Thamdanda road route and trek in from there on the By Road 18-Day itinerary, or walk in from Jiri on the same approach Hillary and Tenzing used in 1953, covered on the Jiri Route 21-Day itinerary.

How the Manthali arrangement actually started

Ramechhap Airport itself dates to October 1979, decades before it had any connection to Everest trekking traffic. Its use for Lukla flights began as a temporary fix in 2019, when Tribhuvan International Airport's single runway underwent maintenance and the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) rerouted STOL traffic to Ramechhap to keep Lukla flights running. Nepali press coverage from that first season, including a widely read November 2019 Kathmandu Post report, described the experience bluntly as unpleasant given the airport's bare-bones facilities. Rather than reverting once the Tribhuvan repairs finished, CAAN made the Ramechhap routing a standing seasonal policy from 2022 onward, citing the same congestion relief it had already demonstrated, and it has held every peak season since.

What the airport itself is actually like

Manthali offers a terminal building with check-in counters and a waiting area, but little beyond that: no lounge, no WiFi, no heating, and no real refreshment options beyond a handful of small shops and local eateries just outside the premises. Mornings during peak season get genuinely crowded, with trekkers, guides, porters, and airline staff all queuing at once, and a wait of several hours in a partially covered, unheated space is normal if flight slots back up. Warm clothing for the wait itself, not just the trek, is worth packing in the daypack rather than the duffel.

What are road conditions like on the drive?

The BP Highway, the route the pre-dawn transfer uses toward Ramechhap, runs through Kavrepalanchok district and is subject to real seasonal disruption: sections have faced nighttime vehicle bans during monsoon months amid flood and landslide risk, and the highway has been fully blocked in both directions by landslides as recently as February 2026. Spring and autumn departures, when the vast majority of Lukla traffic runs, generally avoid the worst of this monsoon-season disruption, but it's a genuine reason operators sometimes adjust departure timing or routing on short notice, separate from the flight cancellation risk covered above.

Is staying overnight in Ramechhap better?

Some operators skip the 1:30 AM Kathmandu wake-up entirely by driving to Ramechhap the afternoon before and staying overnight at a basic local guesthouse near the airstrip, trading a shorter, saner drive for a genuinely rough night's sleep in a town with little tourist infrastructure. Which option a given itinerary uses usually comes down to the operator's own routing preference rather than anything a trekker chooses individually, though it's worth asking directly if a pre-dawn 4 to 5 hour drive sounds harder to manage than a rougher overnight closer to the airstrip.