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Bharatpur Airport (ICAO: VNBP, IATA: BHR) is a domestic airfield serving Bharatpur and the wider Chitwan District in Nepal's Bagmati Province, best known as the principal air gateway to Chitwan National Park. It offers a single hard-surfaced runway and a straightforward domestic traffic pattern operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.
Bharatpur Airport is a domestic aerodrome serving the city of Bharatpur and Chitwan District in Bagmati Province, Nepal. It is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and functions primarily as the main tourist gateway to Chitwan National Park, one of Nepal's premier wildlife destinations. For a visiting simulator pilot it offers a compact single-runway domestic field set against the lowland Terai landscape, a contrast to Nepal's more mountainous airstrips.
The airfield lies within Bharatpur Metropolitan City in Chitwan District, Bagmati Province, in the lowland Terai region of southern Nepal. It sits close to the Chitwan National Park area and is one of two airfields serving the Bharatpur area, the other being Meghauli Airport a short distance away.
Bharatpur has a single physical runway, 15/33, surfaced in hard material (asphalt) and measuring 3,948 feet in length. There is no parallel or secondary runway.
No published communications frequencies or navigational aids are recorded for Bharatpur Airport, and the field has no instrument landing system. Pilots should expect to operate under visual flight rules with any air-ground communication arranged through the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal's local service.
The airfield lies adjacent to Bharatpur Metropolitan City with Chitwan National Park nearby, both useful broad landmarks for orientation when approaching the field from the surrounding Terai lowlands.
The airfield was built in 1958 as part of a resettlement and malaria-control programme in the Chitwan Valley, undertaken with assistance from the United States government. The first passenger flight landed on 5 March 1965. The airport was closed between 1981 and 1985 due to political instability in southern Nepal. A new terminal was built in 2005, at which point the 1,158-metre runway was paved to allow medium-sized aircraft to operate. A further expansion proposal was passed in 2019, and in 2023 Prime Minister Pushpa Dahal laid the foundation stone for a new terminal building. The airfield has also seen tragedy: on 31 July 1993 an Everest Air Dornier 228-101 flying from Kathmandu struck a mountain and crashed while approaching Bharatpur, killing all three crew and sixteen passengers.
Bharatpur continues to operate as a domestic airport under the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, handling scheduled services connecting it to Kathmandu, Pokhara and Siddharthanagar with carriers including Buddha Air and Guna Airlines. It remains the principal air gateway for visitors travelling to Chitwan National Park. Plans for further terminal development were advanced with the 2023 foundation-laying ceremony, though the airfield's single runway and facilities remain modest in scale.
