Himalaya Airlines

Is Himalaya Airlines safe?

On its own record, yes: in ten years of flying Airbus jets between Kathmandu, the Gulf and China it has had no accident and no publicly reported serious incident. The catch is the system around it. Himalaya Airlines is certified in Nepal, whose regulator the European Union has distrusted since 2013, and it flies into two of the harder airports in Asia, Kathmandu and Lhasa. We score it 65, well above Nepal Airlines (48), the state carrier that flies some of the same routes, and above the domestic airlines such as Buddha Air (55).

Himalaya began flying in 2016 as a joint venture between Yeti World Investment, the group behind Yeti Airlines and Tara Air, and the Tibetan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Company from China. It flies on its own certificate (084/2015), so the crashes of its sister airlines do not count here.

The one Nepali airline with an outside audit

In December 2023 Himalaya became the first and so far the only Nepali airline to pass the IATA Operational Safety AuditIOSAThe 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 (IOSA) and join IATA. The audit covers areas from maintenance control to crew training, and IATA membership requires an airline to keep it current. IATA's member list still shows Himalaya under its code H9.

That audit matters more in Nepal than in most countries. ICAO's 2022 audit gave Nepal 70.1% 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 overall, with 83.7% for airworthiness but only 21.7% for accident and incident investigation. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal still regulates the airlines and runs the airports, a conflict ICAO has pointed to since 2009; bills to split it were registered in parliament in October 2026.

We still give Himalaya the same oversight score as every other Nepali airline (25). The EU list of 9 June 2026 names it among the Nepali carriers banned from European airspace, and our rule is that a whole-state ban sets the score unless the EU exempts the airline by name. IOSA is a real point in its favour, and it is the main reason we rate our confidence as medium rather than low.

What does it fly?

Four jets, according to the airline: three Airbus A320-214s with 180 economy seats and one A319-115 with 144. The A320s, registered 9N-ALM, 9N-ALV and 9N-ALW, were built in 2014 and 2017; the A319 joined in March 2020. All are 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 with CFM56 engines, the standard short-haul jet of the last 30 years. They are not the newer A320neo, and a fleet of four leaves little slack when one aircraft is in maintenance, but this is a much younger and more uniform fleet than most Nepali airlines fly.

Where it flies, and why that matters

All flights start in Kathmandu, a valley airport ringed by hills, with one runway and heavy monsoon cloud from June to September. Lhasa, which Himalaya serves from Kathmandu, lies at 3,570 metres among high mountains, where thin air lengthens take-off runs.

The rest of the network is easier on the aircraft but not always calm. Himalaya flies to Dubai, Doha, Dammam and Kuwait, plus Kuala Lumpur, Dhaka and Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and, from 30 September 2026, Hangzhou. The 2026 Gulf conflict closed airspace in the region for weeks; Himalaya cancelled and later resumed its Dubai flights in the first half of the year, and posted several Dammam cancellation notices in October 2026.

The incident record

We found no runway excursionRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary, serious incident, fine or grounding involving Himalaya in the ASN data, AeroInside or Nepali English-language news. The events on record are routine: a Lhasa–Kathmandu flight diverted to Pokhara with 72 people on board when Kathmandu airport was closed, and on 10 May 2019 flight H9 568 from Abu Dhabi hit birds while landing at Kathmandu; the A320 had minor damage and flew again four days later. That is a good sign, but Nepal publishes few incident reports, so we score it as "nothing found" rather than as a proven clean record.

How to fly Himalaya Airlines more safely

• Expect weather diversions into Kathmandu, especially in the monsoon and on winter mornings with haze. A diversion to Pokhara, Bhairahawa or an Indian airport is the system working.
• For Lhasa, allow a spare day. Weather on either side of the range can delay the flight or send it to another airport.
• For domestic connections, remember that the onward flight is on another airline with its own record. Check its page, such as Nepal Airlines or Buddha Air, before you book.

How we scored it

The accident record (85) is the strongest factor: no accident in ten years, but four jets over ten years is too little flying for the top band. Oversight (25) is the same as for every Nepali airline because of the EU ban, even with 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. The fleet (78) is young and uniform; serious incidents (65) reflect a clean but thinly reported record; the environment (45) reflects Kathmandu and Lhasa.