Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) was all spick and span on Tuesday, a dramatic turnaround from the disaster zone described in the inspection report prepared by a government fact-finding mission a week earlier.

Everything was in order at the country’s sole international airport in terms of services and facilities. The rooms and toilets were clean, drinking water was available, the Wi-Fi and telephones were working, and security and immigration officers actually greeted travellers with a smile.

The reason behind the instant transformation wasn’t hard to find—a scheduled inspection visit by Tourism Minister Aananda Prasad Pokharel. “I have seen a lot of improvements within a few days. But improvements alone will not work. The airport needs a complete overhaul,” said Pokharel after his inspection visit that lasted two hours.

He added that the airport’s basic objective was to serve people, and urged stakeholders not to turn the facility into a money-spinning hub.

“A number of changes have become visible at the airport within a week, but we don’t know how long they will last,” said Hari Bahadur Khadka, under-secretary at the Tourism Ministry.

“In fact, the dramatic improvement has shown that if there is a will, there is a way,” said Khadka, who led the government fact-finding committee that prepared the report about the airport’s shortcomings.

On Tuesday, TIA unveiled a number of short-term reform measures to improve performance and services.

“As TIA has been criticized mostly for its poor hygienic standards and insufficient toilets, we have assigned dedicated cleaners at each toilet. We have also planned to build more toilets within six months,” said Devananda Upadhyay, general manager of TIA.

The toilet at TIA is something that all travellers remember, and the country’s only international gateway has often been criticized for its stinking facilities.  

The airport has also planned to implement a beautification project from the golden gate to the terminal. Likewise, Upadhyay said that they would be installing central air-conditioning at the airport, and had already issued a tender call for a central air-conditioning unit with a capacity of 400 tonnes.

“We will also be installing four new escalators and two more conveyer belts for baggage handling. This will help us to process passengers and their luggage faster,” he added. Travellers have had to wait for three hours to retrieve their luggage during peak hours.

TIA has also been constructing a multi-parking system, and once it comes into operation, all the vehicles will be shifted to this area, Upadhyay said. He added that the international terminal had been designed to handle 1,340 passengers per peak hour, but that the present traffic was almost double the capacity, resulting in severe congestion.  

A long-term plan for the airport has envisaged upgrading the facilities to handle 3,600 passengers per peak hour, Upadhyay said. He added that management and coordination was difficult with 236 different agencies with 3,600 employees working in various areas of airport.

“Despite the difficulties, we are committed to improving the service quality and bringing it up to par with international standards.”