Yes, it can only happen in Nepal!

An office boy, an attendant, or a person kept around for odd jobs – called ‘peon’ in Nepal is taking over the responsibility of the Air Trafficking Officer in one of the airports in Nepal. Government newspaper, Gorkhapatra reported that the peon is performing the job of air traffic controller due to the lack of human resource at the airport.

The Air Trafficking Officer is supposed to be the officer with a huge responsibility of keeping the aircrafts and passenger safe during landing and take off. The airport has two such position and there is none to fill the post.

A newly established private airlines company, Tara Air, is conducting regular flights to the airport for the past 9 months. I wonder, how can an airlines company take the safety of its planes and its passenger so lightly?

According to Pravin Subedi, station in-charge of Tara Air, besides the regular flights on Friday, chartered plane flights from Manthali to Lukla and Faplu have also commenced.

He said, "We are operating 40-50 chartered flights besides the regular flights. But as there is no one in the aviation office to operate the tower, we do not receive information on weather, visibility and ground clearance. Thus we are facing a lot of problems.” (source)