Flying from Kathmandu to Lukla

Tenzing–Hillary Airport at Lukla is the gateway to the Everest region and the nearest airport to the mountain itself. It sits at 2,845 m (9,334 ft) on a shelf above the Dudh Koshi, and its 527 m runway is built on an 11.7 per cent uphill slope with a mountainside at the top and a drop at the bottom.

The gradient is a safety feature, not a quirk. Aircraft land uphill, which slows them without brakes, and take off downhill, which accelerates them in thin air. There is no go-around on the approach: a pilot commits to the landing, and that is why the airport is flown by experienced crews in specific aircraft and by nobody else.

Flights operate in the morning, because the Khumbu valley reliably clouds over by early afternoon. A fixed-wing seat costs roughly US$180 to US$220 one way for foreign nationals, with lower fares for Nepali citizens, and the aircraft are 15- to 19-seat turboprops.

In the peak trekking seasons the flights are often moved out of Kathmandu altogether to Manthali airport in Ramechhap, which is four to five hours away by road. The flight itself then takes about 12 minutes; the day still starts at one in the morning. Whether the switch applies in a given season changes, so confirm the departure airport when you book rather than when you check in.

Lukla closes for cloud, wind or rain regularly, and it does not close for an hour — it closes for the day, and the passengers from that day are added to the next. Two consecutive bad days in October produce a backlog it can take three days to clear, and the trekkers who booked earliest go first.

This is where the helicopter earns its price. A helicopter can operate in conditions that ground a fixed-wing aircraft on that approach, can fly when the queue at the airline desk is 200 people long, and departs when the weather opens rather than when a schedule says so. A shared seat is roughly $600, a charter roughly $2,700 — several times the aeroplane fare, and routinely paid by people who have a flight home to catch.

Lukla is the start of the walk, not the end of it. Everest Base Camp is about 62 km away and 2,500 m higher, and the trek takes three to five days up depending on how much acclimatisation you build in, with two to three days back down. Eight to twelve days round trip is normal.

You cannot compress that safely on foot — the whole schedule exists to let your body adapt to altitude. What you can do is fly one leg: helicopter returns from Lukla, Namche or Gorak Shep are common, and they turn a four-day walk-out into an hour.

Yes. Nothing else is close. Lukla is the only airport serving the Khumbu, and Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International is the nearest international arrival point, about 140 km away and a world of altitude below.

There is also Syangboche, a dirt strip above Namche Bazaar at 3,748 m, but it is not a scheduled airport and is used almost exclusively by helicopters.