Flydubai will begin daily direct flights between Dubai and Pokhara starting September 23, becoming the first UAE airline to serve Nepal's tourism capital directly.
After 17 long years of flying to Kathmandu, this is flydubai's second Nepali destination which is offered through a codeshare with Emirates for smoother connections and single-ticket baggage check-in.
Details for cost, aircraft and others
Starting September 23, 2026, flydubai will launch daily direct flights between Dubai (DXB) and Pokhara (PHH). Flight FZ 1165 departs Dubai at 12:00 PM and lands in Pokhara at 6:15 PM; the return flight (FZ 1166) leaves Pokhara at 7:15 PM and arrives back in Dubai at 10:00 PM local time.
The service will utilize narrow-body aircraft, deploying the Airbus A319 (140–150 passengers) for standard traffic and the Airbus A320 (160–180 passengers) for peak travel demand, fully aligning with the airport's infrastructure constraints designed for standard narrow-body jets like the Boeing 737.
Return fares start from AED 5,000 (Business) and AED 1,900 (Economy Lite) from Dubai, or NPR 190,000 and NPR 91,000 respectively from Pokhara.
"Nepal has remained an exceptionally important market for flydubai since we first launched operations to Kathmandu in 2009, and introducing direct flights to Pokhara underscores our ongoing commitment to supporting free flows of trade and tourism between the UAE and Nepal," said Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of flydubai.
Pokhara International Airport opened on January 1, 2023, but as of 2026 has handled mostly domestic flights and occasional charters, with no regular scheduled international service despite the original vision behind the project. The airport's early years were also overshadowed by the tragic Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crash on approach to the airport in January 2023. flydubai's new route is, notably, the airport's first true scheduled international service from a major foreign carrier.
For a country like ours dependent on tourism as one of the major sources of income, Pokhara serves as one of the most popular places as it is the gateway to the Annapurna range and hence for so many of the trekking routes, a direct link to Dubai's global hub can be proven to be a significant difference meaningfully expanding the statistics of international visitors being able to directly reach the region without having to transiting through Kathmandu.
