Flydubai Starts First International Flights to Pokhara, Nepal

flydubai has started daily non-stop flights between Dubai International (DXB) and Pokhara International Airport (PHH) in western Nepal. The airline says it is the first carrier to run scheduled international flights to Pokhara.

The first flight left Terminal 3 at DXB on 23 September 2026. When it landed in Pokhara, airport fire trucks greeted it with a water-cannon salute.

flydubai says the route makes Pokhara Nepal’s third airport with scheduled international flights. Pokhara is Nepal’s main base for tourists heading into the Annapurna mountains.

Building on Kathmandu

Pokhara is flydubai’s second destination in Nepal. The airline has flown to Kathmandu for 17 years and now operates four flights a day there. With the new daily Pokhara service, it flies 35 times a week to Nepal in total.

Kathmandu has been an important route for flydubai. The airline says it has carried more than 4.5 million passengers to and from the Nepalese capital since 2009. About 65 per cent of them continued beyond Dubai on flydubai or Emirates flights.

That high share of connecting passengers explains Pokhara’s appeal. The route is sold under flydubai’s codeshare with Emirates, which lets passengers book one ticket with bags checked through to their final stop. flydubai says this connects Pokhara with more than 140 destinations. Passengers from Nepal most often connect to Bucharest, Dammam, Jeddah, Muscat and Riyadh. On the Emirates network, Larnaca, Lisbon, London, New York and Vienna send some of the most travellers to Nepal.

Timetable and fares

FZ1165 leaves Dubai at 12:00 and lands in Pokhara at 18:15. The return flight, FZ1166, leaves at 19:15 and arrives in Dubai at 22:00. All times are local.

Return fares from Dubai start at AED 1,950 in Economy and AED 5,400 in Business Class.

South Asia

Sudhir Sreedharan, flydubai’s Divisional Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations, said the service means travellers no longer need several flights or a long road journey to reach western Nepal. He thanked the local authorities for their welcome.

The route adds to flydubai’s large South Asia network. The airline now serves 20 destinations in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with more than 380 flights a week to the region. flydubai says this is the widest network of any airline between Dubai and South Asia.

flydubai flies only Boeing 737s. According to its newsroom, the fleet has 98 aircraft: 25 Boeing 737-800s, 69 737 MAX 8s and four 737 MAX 9s, serving more than 125 destinations. A narrowbody such as the 737 suits a new route like Pokhara, where a smaller aircraft is easier to fill.