Nepal chartered flight: Stranded Australian trekkers return from Kathmandu to Brisbane
After weeks of uncertainty and multiple cancelled flights, more than 250 stranded Australians and New Zealanders are finally back on home soil after a historic flight from the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. Read the inside story on how they got home.
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It was a flight like none of us had ever experienced before, and most likely will never experience again.
This was the journey which would get us home to Australia after being stranded in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu for the better part of two weeks.
It was probably the most expensive flight most of the 250 passengers had ever booked.
The one-way tickets in cattle class had cost each of us about $3000, but it was money we were relieved to be able to offload.
It was a flight which had been chartered for Australian and New Zealand citizens and permanent residents, arranged by the Australian Embassy in Nepal after days of negotiations with a number of airlines and the government bureaucracies of many countries.
In the end, the embassy had brokered a deal with Nepal Airlines and the Nepalese Government to get the planeload of 222 Aussies and 28 Kiwis back home.
It would be the first time Nepal Airlines, a government-operated organisation, had landed a plane in Australia. It was also the first time a plane had flown directly between Nepal and Australia.
The plane, a wide-bodied Airbus A330 less than two years old, touched down to refuel in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, but passengers remained in their seats.
Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport had opened especially for the flight to take off, and passengers were ferried to the airport by a bus convoy from the Australian Embassy, where they had been gradually amassing for most of the day.
Most of the passengers had been trying to get home for days, if not weeks, after the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued an edict for overseas travellers to return immediately as the world dealt with the coronavirus.
Many had already dealt with the disappointment of more than one flight being cancelled, as the Nepalese Government sent the central Asian country into total lockdown to manage the pandemic. The emotional and financial stress had forced many travellers to tears.
So as we gathered on the lawns of the embassy awaiting transport to the airport, the mood was still charged with a degree of trepidation. Sure, we were a lot closer to getting home than we had been for many days. But no one would be prepared to pop the champagne until we actually touched down back in Brisbane.
Buses had ferried everyone on the flight to the embassy. It was the third time most of us had gathered at the embassy in five days. The first time had been the previous Saturday, after Ambassador Pete Budd on Friday night spread the word that he had been negotiating with Qatar Airways to get us home via Doha.
This flight, he said, would leave on the Monday morning and cost $US2995 (about $A3800) per person.
People wanting to get on this flight needed to get to the embassy with their passports and credit cards the next day to book tickets.
The hefty price caused a minor backlash on social media and, of the more than 500 people who had so far registered as wanting to get home from Nepal, only about 60 turned up at the embassy.
Some disaffected expats called for people to boycott the flight and, as we were waiting to purchase tickets, negotiations broke down. The Qatar flight was over before it even got off the ground. We were gutted. My group of eight companions, all friends from South Australia who had enjoyed a memorable trek to Gokyo and Everest Base Camp, had been back in Kathmandu for more than a week trying to find a way home, and our hopes had been pinned on this Qatar Airways flight.
Some had to call on family and friends to help with their finances but we all had children to get home to, and were all prepared to cough up the money required to get home.
The embassy’s quickly-arranged dal bhat and beers failed to stem the disappointment and we were a forlorn group as we trudged more than 4km back to our hotel through the empty streets of a city in lockdown. We kept apart from each other to maintain social distancing regulations and police were manning several major intersections to ensure the roads remained empty.
We got back to our hotel in Thamel, the tourist hub of Kathmandu, unsure how or when we would ever get home.
Hotel Moonlight had been our home since we became stranded at the airport the previous week and were rescued by the ambassador’s wife Emma Stone.
For a few days, our group of eight, a couple of Kiwis and a couple of Scots had been its only occupants, and we formed our own little family. Food choices were limited, but we were getting three meals a day, had shelter and the few remaining staff were amazingly friendly.
It was against lockdown rules to leave the hotel confines, so we created our own little routines. One of our group had done a bit of yoga, so we started a daily class on the rooftop of the mostly abandoned hotel.
We were also able to use the same rooftop for some makeshift gym sessions, following an online workout and using outdoor table umbrellas and potplants for weights, and a rooftop staircase as a climbing machine.
But there wasn’t much appetite for exercise when we returned despondent from the embassy that Saturday, even though the ambassador had indicated negotiations with Qatar would continue and there was a new potential carrier who had joined the discussion – Nepal Airlines.
By the Sunday night though, there was some more promising news. The ambassador had made a personal visit to our hotel, which now boasted a core of about 20 stranded Aussies and New Zealanders, to let us know he was in the midst of striking up a deal with Nepal Airlines and we needed to hightail it back to the embassy on Monday morning to book our seats.
Within 24 hours, our tickets were booked. We had also spent a delightful afternoon on the embassy’s shaded lawn area – kicking the footy around, sharing more dal bhat and mastering the bag-tossing game corn hole. Well, some of us mastered corn hole better than others, but it certainly helped pass the time.
The embassy again provided a few beers and even broke out some wine at the end of the day to toast the fact that we would soon be on a plane.
The mood when we returned to the hotel, this time by an embassy-arranged bus, was buoyant and we enjoyed one final full day of glorious spring weather in a Kathmandu which, thanks to the total lockdown, boasted an air quality unencumbered by the dust and smog usually emitted by its million or so residents.
So on Wednesday morning we headed back to the embassy, enhanced our corn hole skills further, and eventually boarded buses to the airport.
There was a mixture of relief and nervous anticipation as we waited to board the plane.
The Nepal Airlines flight crew members received a standing ovation as they made their way through the waiting area, as did the pilots.
Pete Budd addressed the crowd before we boarded, to thank the passengers for their patience, and even a thunderstorm and a few lightning strikes near the airport could not dampen the enthusiasm.
About the only disappointing moment came as we were about to take off, and the announcement came over the plane’s speaker system that there would be no alcohol served on the flight.
The collective groan of more than 200 people was mitigated moments later when the wheels left the ground to a rapturous round of applause. Just over 12 dry hours later, there was more applause as we touched down in Brisbane before we were ferried to our hotels to begin 14 days of compulsory isolation.
