History
The airport began as Gauchar Airport, named after the area of Kathmandu where it was situated. The formal beginning of aviation in Nepal occurred in 1949 with the landing of a lone, four-seater, Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, carrying the Indian ambassador. The first charter flight took place between Gaucher and Calcutta, in a Himalayan Aviation Dakota on 20 February 1950.
In 1955 the airport was inaugurated by King Mahendra and renamed Tribhuvan Airport in memory of the king's father. The airport was again renamed Tribhuvan International Airport in 1964. The original grass runway was re-laid in concrete in 1957 and extended from 3,750 feet (1,140 m) long, to 6,600 feet (2,000 m) long in 1967. The runway was again extended from 6,600 feet (2,000 m) to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in 1975.
The first jet aircraft to land at Tribhuvan was a Lufthansa Boeing 707, which touched down on the 6,600 feet (2,000 m) runway in 1967. Nepal Airlines Corporation commenced jet operations at the airport in 1972 with Boeing 727 aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Tribhuvan International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)