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Monday, February 02, 2009

How to get to | Nepal

Continuing the series with an Asian country.

Nepal

source: Wikipedia



Nepal is accessible by land from India, or Tibet over the Friendship Pass, or by air. As far as I know only Asia-based airlines and perhaps the odd seasonal charter flight from Europe fly into Kathmandu. There are lots of flights from India, and not so many from each of the major Asian capitals (none from Tokyo for example). In terms of the main airline alliances:


  • Star Alliance has Thai (from Bangkok) and Air China (from Chengdu via Lhasa). The Singapore Airlines flights are actually operated by Silk Air and thus not available for awards or on certain fares.

  • Oneworld has Dragonair (from Hong Kong)

  • Skyteam has Korean (from Seoul) and China Southern (from Guangzhou)

Fares can be fairly high relative to other Asian destinations. Awards may be tricky due to limited options.


TIP look for travel off peak.


TIP discounted business class can be available for little more than economy.

1 comment:

Gary said...

I've found it quite reasonable to route via DEL or CCU (which from the US East Coast makes an Atlantic routing possible rather than having to connect in BKK etc), and the add-on ticket from DEL and CCU are not that pricey.

(BKK-KTM is one of the most frequently blocked flights by United for award redemption, and I found that purchasing the BKK-KTM segments was ~ $900, similar to purchasing SIN-KTM which as you note is not available on a *A award. DEL-KTM return can be had for under $300. Though do note that India does not offer visa on arrival for those that require it, even for transit, so even if I were just connecting I'd ideally want to secure a visa in advance just in case.)