Bhutan Airlines

Is Bhutan Airlines safe?

Its record says yes. Bhutan Airlines, the country's private airline, has flown Airbus jets into Paro since October 2013 without an accident or a written-off aircraft. The catch is the paperwork behind it: it is not an IATA member, so it has no confirmed IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary safety audit, and Bhutan's aviation regulator is small and publishes little. We score it 70, one point above the state airline Drukair (69) and well above the Nepali airlines next door, such as Buddha Air.

Who runs it and where it flies

Bhutan Airlines is the trading name of Tashi Air Pvt Ltd. It began in December 2011 with a single-engine Pilatus PC-12 on domestic routes, which it dropped within about six months. Its Airbus era began on 10 October 2013 with a flight from Paro to Bangkok, and daily flights to Kolkata followed that December. Today its A319s fly from Paro to Kolkata and Delhi, to Bangkok via Kolkata, and to Kathmandu, and in January 2025 it added Hong Kong. Its flights use the ICAO code BTN and the radio call sign BHUTAN AIR.

It is a small operation. The airline lists only one aircraft type, the A319, and does not publish how many it has or how old they are. That matters less than it might seem, because the A319 is a mature, fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary type that Airbus tested at Paro before Drukair first took it there in 2004. But without a fleet list we cannot credit Bhutan Airlines with young aircraft, so the fleet scores 60.

Flying into Paro

Paro is the reason both Bhutanese airlines get a low environment score. The airport sits at about 7,300 feet in a narrow valley, with peaks up to 16,000 feet around it. Flights operate by day only. Bhutan Airlines has flown this approach daily for 13 years without an accident.

The rest of the network is easier. Kolkata, Delhi, Bangkok and Hong Kong are large airports with full instrument landing systems. Kathmandu is harder, with its own valley approach and crowded airspace. We score the environment at 38, slightly above Drukair (35), which also flies to small domestic airstrips and runs helicopters into remote valleys.

What has gone wrong

The most serious event on record happened on the ground. On 9 September 2017 an A319 about to taxi at Kolkata for Bangkok, flight B3-700, began to emit smoke from its auxiliary power unit (APU). The crew ordered an evacuation down the slides, and about 20 people were treated for cuts and bruises. Engineers found no sign of fire or heat; oil had probably leaked onto the hot section of the APU. Smoke is a fair reason to evacuate, but the injuries show how a slide evacuation itself can hurt people, which is why it counts in the serious-incidents factor (72).

One older event falls just outside our ten-year window: in October 2016 a crew went around at Kathmandu because a goat had wandered onto the runway, and landed safely 40 minutes later.

We could find nothing else, but a short list is not proof of a clean record. Bhutan's investigators publish little online, and the airline is too small to appear often in the trade press.

Oversight is the weak point

Drukair is an IATA member and must pass an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit every two years. Bhutan Airlines is not on IATA's member list, so we cannot confirm that it has ever been audited to that standard. That costs it about 6 points on oversight against Drukair, even though both answer to the same regulator.

The regulator is the second issue. Bhutan's own State Safety Programme, issued by the Bhutan Civil Aviation Authority in April 2025, says ICAO last audited the country in 2018 and sets a target to raise its "effective implementationICAO USOAPICAO's audit of how well each country's aviation regulator oversees safety. The result is an "effective implementation" percentage.More in the glossary" of ICAO standards to 60%, below the global average. No Bhutanese airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and Bhutan is not on the FAA's IASAFAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary list because no Bhutanese airline flies to the United States. We treat the low target and the eight years without an ICAO audit as a documented weakness and take 2 points off, so oversight scores 62.

Before you fly Bhutan Airlines

• Book a morning flight into or out of Paro. Afternoon wind in the valley causes most delays and diversions.
• Leave a spare day before a long-haul connection. A weather hold at Paro can push you onto the next day's flight, and there are only a few each day.
• Check which airline flies your ticket. Drukair (KB) and Bhutan Airlines (B3) serve many of the same cities; only Drukair has a confirmed IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, while Bhutan Airlines has the cleaner accident record.

How we scored it

The accident record (85) is the strongest factor: no accident in nearly 15 years, though on a small fleet. Serious incidents (72) reflect the 2017 evacuation and a thin public record. Oversight (62) is held down by the missing IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit and a regulator that sets a low ICAO target and has not been audited by ICAO since 2018. The fleet (60) is a single older type with no published age, and the environment (38) is Paro.