The carrier becomes the first UAE airline to fly direct to Pokhara, adding a second Nepal gateway after 17 years on the Kathmandu route.
flydubai will launch a daily service to Pokhara International Airport from September 23, becoming the first UAE carrier to fly direct to Nepal’s second-largest city. The route operates from Terminal 3 at Dubai International and is the airline’s second destination in the country.
It deepens a presence that began in 2009, when flydubai started flying to Kathmandu. The carrier has since carried around four million passengers to Nepal and grown seat capacity more than twelvefold, scaling up to five daily Kathmandu flights at peak.
Pokhara sits near the Annapurna range and is Nepal’s main adventure and leisure tourism hub. flydubai said the route would open up western Nepal’s trekking and eco-tourism market to international travellers, supplementing rather than replacing the Kathmandu service. Chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith framed it as a second gateway into the market and a use of Dubai’s position as a connecting hub.
The service runs as part of flydubai’s codeshare with Emirates, giving passengers a single ticket, through-checked baggage and access to the combined network. Flight FZ 1165 departs Dubai at 12:00 and arrives at 18:15; the return FZ 1166 leaves Pokhara at 19:15, landing in Dubai at 22:00.
Return business class fares from Dubai start at AED 5,000 and economy lite at AED 1,900. From Pokhara, business starts at NPR 190,000 and economy lite at NPR 91,000.
Why it matters for the trade
A second gateway changes how western Nepal can be sold. Until now, a client heading for the Annapurna circuit flew into Kathmandu and connected onward. A direct flight into Pokhara cuts the domestic leg out of the trekking itinerary, which removes a weak link and a day of travel.
The Emirates codeshare is the multiplier. It puts Pokhara on a single ticket from Emirates’ long-haul network across Europe, the GCC and beyond, with baggage checked through. For agents, that turns a hard-to-reach trekking base into a connection they can book in one transaction.
It is also a capacity bet on leisure demand specifically. Kathmandu carries the business, VFR and gateway traffic. Pokhara is a tourism play, and flydubai is betting the adventure market is deep enough to fill a daily widebody-network feed.
Source: flydubai press release, June 11, 2026.