Bharatpur-Kathmandu Flights Double as Highway Stays Blocked

Bharatpur, Monday 7 September 2026 (as of 09:00 NPT): Buddha Air, the only airline operating between Bharatpur and Kathmandu, has more than doubled its flights on the route after landslide damage broke the Prithvi Highway, raising the schedule from the usual five departures a day to as many as eleven. Bhaktabahadur Basnet, chief of the airline’s Bharatpur office, told Online Khabar that between nine and eleven flights now operate daily, with the exact number set by passenger demand. The increase is the aviation response to a road crisis now in its second week, and it reshapes the practical choices facing travellers to Chitwan National Park and Nepal’s third-largest city this autumn.

The shift is simple to state: with the main highway between Chitwan and the capital broken at Krishna Bhir and other points, the short flight between Bharatpur Airport and Kathmandu has become the dependable way in and out of the western approach to the valley, while buses and private vehicles contend with a longer detour through Makwanpur. Here is what is confirmed, why the aircraft on the route cannot carry a full load, and what the change means for safari plans over the coming days.

Table of Contents

1. What Happened: Five Daily Flights Become Up to Eleven
2. The Route in Numbers: Bharatpur to Kathmandu
3. Why the ATR 72 Leaves Bharatpur With Empty Seats
4. Why Travellers Are Choosing Air: The Broken Prithvi Corridor
5. What This Means for Chitwan and Autumn Safari Travellers
6. The Alternative: Road Through Makwanpur and the Weather Factor
7. The Wider Picture: Nepal’s Autumn Travel Is Shifting to the Air
8. Practical Advice for Travellers This Week
9. Frequently Asked Questions
10. Sources

What Happened: Five Daily Flights Become Up to Eleven

According to Online Khabar’s Chitwan report published on Monday morning, the Prithvi Highway has been obstructed at Krishna Bhir and other locations after sections of the road collapsed, and pressure from air passengers on the Bharatpur-Kathmandu route has climbed sharply in response. Buddha Air, which has long been the only carrier on the route, answered by more than doubling its flights.

Basnet, who heads Buddha Air’s Bharatpur office, confirmed the figures: the route normally operates five flights a day, and the airline has raised that to as many as eleven, with between nine and eleven flights run daily according to need. The airline described the increase as a facilitation measure for passengers while the road remains disrupted.

He also noted that during the monsoon season travellers already tend to prefer flying, a preference the broken highway has now amplified. Each of those travellers is making a rational choice: the alternative is a detour road through the same midhill weather system that has been producing landslides for two weeks.

The Route in Numbers: Bharatpur to Kathmandu

The confirmed picture of the route as of Monday 7 September 2026:

Route detail	Figure
Airline on the route	Buddha Air (sole operator)
Normal schedule	5 flights daily
Current schedule	9 to 11 flights daily, set by demand
Aircraft type	ATR 72
Seats on paper	72
Typical load, Kathmandu to Bharatpur	65 to 70 passengers
Typical load, Bharatpur to Kathmandu	about 50 passengers
Why loads are capped	Bharatpur’s runway is too short for a full-load takeoff

All figures were confirmed to Online Khabar by the Buddha Air Bharatpur office on Monday 7 September 2026. The airline has not announced any change to fares; travellers should check current prices directly with the airline or a booking agent.

Why the ATR 72 Leaves Bharatpur With Empty Seats

The aircraft on the route is the ATR 72, a turboprop with a paper capacity of 72 passengers. But capacity on paper is not capacity on the runway. Flights arriving from Kathmandu land at Bharatpur carrying 65 to 70 passengers, while flights departing Bharatpur leave with about 50, because the airport’s runway is too short to allow the aircraft to take off at its full rated load. The result is a structural asymmetry: more seats arrive in Chitwan than depart from it.

That runway constraint also explains the shape of the airline’s response to the demand surge. With the same aircraft type and the same runway, the only lever available is frequency: more flights, each one leaving partly empty, rather than bigger planes. Doubling from five to eleven daily departures restores capacity on the route even though each individual flight carries fewer people than its seat count suggests.

Bharatpur Airport (IATA: BHR, ICAO: VNBP) is one of two airports serving the Bharatpur area, the other being Meghauli Airport, and it serves as the main tourist gateway to Chitwan National Park, according to the airport’s published record. For most safari visitors, a flight into Bharatpur is followed by a short road transfer to the jungle lodges of the Chitwan lowlands.

Why Travellers Are Choosing Air: The Broken Prithvi Corridor

The flight increase traces directly to the state of the road. On 5 September, a section of the Prithvi Highway collapsed at Krishna Bhir in Dhading, severing the main artery between the capital and the western midhills; we documented the collapse and the repair plan in our earlier report on the Krishnabhir highway collapse. The Prithvi Highway, designated NH17, runs 174 kilometres from Naubise, 26 kilometres west of Kathmandu, to Pokhara, and it normally carries the bulk of traffic moving between the capital, Chitwan and the Annapurna region.

Closer to Chitwan, the Narayangadh-Mugling section of the same corridor is operating under daily one-way opening windows while crews stabilize slope failures, as we reported in our Monday morning Narayangadh-Mugling road closure update. With the highway broken above and the Mugling approaches compromised below, the effective road distance between Chitwan and Kathmandu has stretched well beyond its normal length, and the detour through Makwanpur adds further hours for buses and private vehicles.

Against that backdrop, the airline’s own reading is unsurprising: in the monsoon, passengers prefer to fly, and a broken highway turns that preference into necessity for anyone with a schedule to keep.

What This Means for Chitwan and Autumn Safari Travellers

Bharatpur is the commercial heart of Chitwan district and the main gateway to Chitwan National Park, Nepal’s first national park, established in 1973 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, protecting about 953 square kilometres of Terai grassland, riverine forest and the Churia hills. Late September and October open the peak season for wildlife viewing, when grass levels drop and animals concentrate around waterholes.

For travellers with fixed safari itineraries, the practical reading of the current situation is manageable but tight. Air capacity into Chitwan has effectively more than doubled at the same time the road alternative has degraded, so the bottleneck is shifting from the highway to the booking window. Because each departing flight physically carries about 50 passengers rather than the 72 the airframe offers, demand concentrates into fewer usable seats than the schedule alone implies.

Our complete Chitwan National Park guide covers the park, its wildlife and lodge areas; this article focuses on the transport picture while the corridor is broken. The two belong together in any autumn Chitwan plan this month.

The Alternative: Road Through Makwanpur and the Weather Factor

For those who must drive, or prefer to, the confirmed alternative is the road from Chitwan through Makwanpur district to Kathmandu. It is longer than the direct highway, and it runs through the same monsoon weather system that has been triggering landslides across Nepal’s midhills for the past two weeks.

The forecast for Monday underlines the risk. The Department of Hydrology and Meteorology expects generally cloudy skies across the country, with moderate to heavy rain likely at one or two places in the hilly areas of Koshi, Bagmati and Gandaki provinces, the hilly parts of Karnali province, and the hill and Terai areas of Lumbini and Sudurpashchim provinces, Online Khabar reported. The department counts 50 to 100 millimetres of rain within 24 hours as heavy rainfall, the threshold at which slopes already saturated by two weeks of rain begin to fail.

The road closure is being felt well beyond passenger travel. In Kathmandu, consumers are spending hours hunting for cooking gas cylinders as the closure of the Mugling-Naubise road disrupts supplies, the Kathmandu Post reported on Sunday, a reminder of how much of the capital’s freight normally rides this single corridor. A highway that carries gas cylinders also carries safari buses, and both are now competing for the same detour.

The Wider Picture: Nepal’s Autumn Travel Is Shifting to the Air

The Bharatpur increase is part of a pattern rather than an isolated move. When the Prithvi Highway first broke, Pokhara’s tourist bus fleet went idle while air traffic between Kathmandu and Pokhara surged, a shift we documented in our report on Pokhara’s idle buses and flight surge. Buddha Air has also been rebuilding its regional network this month, resuming its Nepalgunj-Pokhara route. With the main midhill corridor under strain, domestic aviation is absorbing the autumn travel demand that would normally move by road.

For a full overview of flight, airport and overland options across the country, see our How to Get to Nepal in 2026 guide, and for monsoon-season risk management on trails and roads, our complete trekking safety and health guide is the relevant reference.

Practical Advice for Travellers This Week

1. Book the flight early and reconfirm the day before. The schedule now flexes between nine and eleven flights daily depending on demand, so a seat seen tonight may not be there tomorrow morning.
2. Expect full flights, not bigger planes. The ATR 72 cannot depart Bharatpur at full capacity, so each departure carries about 50 passengers regardless of how many people want to fly.
3. If you are driving, plan the Makwanpur route and check conditions before departure. The direct highway remains broken at Krishna Bhir, and the Narayangadh-Mugling section moves only in daily one-way windows.
4. Watch the weather windows. With heavy rain forecast in several hill districts, a slope that is passable in the morning can close a road within hours; landslide risk stays elevated until the monsoon withdraws.
5. Build a buffer day into Chitwan itineraries. A missed connection on a broken corridor is currently the rule rather than the exception; an extra day in Bharatpur or Kathmandu is cheaper than a missed safari block booking.
6. Keep return options open. No highway reopening date has been announced, so treat the extra flight frequency as open-ended and hold flexible tickets where possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many flights now operate between Bharatpur and Kathmandu each day?

Between nine and eleven daily as of Monday 7 September 2026, up from the usual five. Buddha Air sets the exact number day by day according to passenger demand, according to the airline’s Bharatpur office.

Which airline flies the Bharatpur to Kathmandu route?

Buddha Air is the only carrier on the route, and it has been for years. All the additional capacity announced this week is Buddha Air capacity.

Why does the aircraft leave Bharatpur with only about 50 passengers?

The ATR 72 has 72 seats on paper, but Bharatpur’s runway is too short for the aircraft to take off at its full rated load. Flights arrive from Kathmandu with 65 to 70 passengers and depart with about 50.

Is the road between Chitwan and Kathmandu open?

Only partially and slowly. The Prithvi Highway is broken at Krishna Bhir, the Narayangadh-Mugling section is under daily one-way windows, and a longer alternative runs through Makwanpur. Driving is possible but adds significant time and carries monsoon landslide risk.

Should safari travellers fly to Chitwan or drive?

With a fixed itinerary, flying is the safer choice this month: the route has more than doubled in frequency while the road alternative has degraded. With flexible time and a tolerance for detours, the Makwanpur road remains usable.

Will the extra flights continue, and when will the highway reopen?

The extra frequency is expected to continue as long as the highway stays broken, but that is an expectation, not a confirmed commitment. No reopening date for the Krishna Bhir section has been announced; a new track above the collapse is being built, and we will update this article as notices appear.

Sources

• Online Khabar, High passenger pressure on Bharatpur-Kathmandu flight after road affected, 7 September 2026 (Nepali language): flight increase, load figures, Makwanpur alternative, statement by Bhaktabahadur Basnet, Buddha Air Bharatpur office. Original article
• Online Khabar, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology forecast, 7 September 2026 (Nepali language): heavy rain outlook and rainfall definitions. Original article
• Kathmandu Post, LPG crisis deepens in Kathmandu, restaurants on the brink, 6 September 2026: supply disruption from the Mugling-Naubise closure. Original article
• Wikipedia: Bharatpur Airport, Chitwan National Park, Prithvi Highway (accessed 7 September 2026).
• TravellingNepal.com previous coverage: the Krishnabhir collapse report and the Narayangadh-Mugling closure update.

Published on Monday 7 September 2026. Flight and road status details are current as of 09:00 NPT on that date and will be updated as new notices appear.