Pokhara Gains First Dubai Direct Flights as Nepal Flood Crisis Upends Tourism Season

Pokhara marked a landmark moment in September 2026 when flydubai inaugurated the first scheduled daily non-stop flights between Dubai and Pokhara International Airport, opening a direct air corridor from the Gulf to Western Nepal for the very first time. The milestone in connectivity arrived against a difficult backdrop: catastrophic floods had swept across Nepal just weeks earlier, killing more than 1,450 people, severing key highways, and triggering widespread cancellations among the foreign visitors who sustain the country peak autumn tourism season.

🏢 flydubai Inaugurates First Daily Non-Stop Service Between Dubai and Pokhara

flydubai launched daily non-stop flights between Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Pokhara International Airport (PHH) on September 25, 2026, establishing the first direct air link between Dubai and Western Nepal. The service marks a historic milestone for the city aviation sector, making Pokhara only the third airport in Nepal to offer scheduled international connectivity, after Kathmandu. With this launch, Pokhara becomes flydubai second destination in the country, sitting alongside Kathmandu where the carrier has operated since 2009. The new route brings flydubai total weekly frequencies across Nepal to 35, adding to the four daily flights it already runs into the capital. Over seventeen years on the Kathmandu route, flydubai has carried more than 4.5 million passengers, with 65 percent of that traffic continuing onward through Dubai hub onto the broader flydubai and Emirates network. The expansion into Pokhara is designed to serve growing demand for direct and convenient access to Western Nepal and the Annapurna mountain range, removing the need for multiple stopovers or lengthy overland journeys. Sudhir Sreedharan, Divisional Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at flydubai, said the launch deepens a longstanding commitment: since beginning Kathmandu operations seventeen years ago, the airline objective has been to offer a direct and accessible link between the UAE and Nepal. With Pokhara now on the network, flydubai holds the distinction of operating the widest Dubai-to-South-Asia network, covering 20 destinations across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka through more than 380 weekly flights. The inaugural service was welcomed by local authorities and positions Pokhara as a more accessible entry point to the country adventure tourism capital for the growing number of Nepali diaspora and leisure travellers based across the Gulf and beyond. [5]

Catastrophic Floods Strike Nepal at Peak Season, Devastating Pokhara Tourism Economy

Catastrophic floods swept through Nepal in late August and September 2026, killing more than 1,450 people, destroying critical road infrastructure, and plunging the country tourism industry into its deepest crisis in years. The disaster struck with particularly cruel timing, arriving just as Nepal was entering its peak autumn tourism window, the busiest period of the year for the trekking, adventure travel and hospitality businesses that sustain a large share of the national economy. Tourism accounts for nearly eight percent of Nepal gross domestic product and supports an estimated one million livelihoods across the country, making the widespread cancellations that followed especially damaging. Tour planner and taxi driver Pushpraj Rimal, based in Kathmandu, described the experience as feeling still like a lockdown after his calendar of international bookings collapsed in the wake of the floods. The destruction of key highways disrupted overland access to mountain regions, compounding uncertainty for travellers considering journeys to cities like Pokhara, the principal gateway to the Annapurna range. Nepal prime minister publicly framed the floods as a warning to the world about the accelerating dangers of climate change for Himalayan nations, calling for greater international attention and support. The Al Jazeera report, published on September 28, documented the human cost across Kathmandu, Chitwan and Nuwakot, capturing how communities that had rebuilt their livelihoods around tourism were once again left in limbo. For the diaspora, the scale of the destruction brought home the ongoing vulnerability of the region to extreme weather events driven by forces far beyond its borders. [4]

Sources: [5] flydubai · [4] Al Jazeera