Everest Mountain Flight

The price is per person and drops as your group grows.

From USD 215 per person. The price moves with group size because the seat cost does not, but the ground handling does.

That covers the seat and the airport transfer both ways. There is no permit to buy for a mountain flight and no park fee, because you never enter the national park.

If you fly and cannot see the mountains because of weather, we refund the full amount. That is the policy, not a goodwill gesture.

Most operators rebook you onto the next departure instead. Rebooking is fine if you have spare days in Kathmandu and worth nothing if you fly home tomorrow, which is why this matters more than it looks on a trip with one clear morning in it.

If the airline stands the flight down before boarding, you are rebooked or refunded, your choice.

Autumn, late September to November, and spring, March to May. The air is clear and stable in both, and autumn is the sharper of the two because the monsoon has washed the haze out.

December to February flies well on a clear morning and visibility can be the best of the year, but more mornings are stood down for weather.

June to August is the monsoon. Cloud and rain hide the mountains for days at a time. If your trip falls in these months, book the first morning of your stay so there is room for a second attempt.

Very little, because you are not entering a park or a restricted area.

• Your passport. It is a domestic flight, but photo ID is checked at the terminal.
• Your Nepal visa if you are a foreign national, which you will already hold to be in the country.
• Travel insurance covering cancellation. Not compulsory for the flight, sensible for the trip around it.
• A camera, and no tripod. You are shooting handheld through glass at speed. Wipe the window, turn the flash off, and leave the polariser at home.

No permit, no park fee, no trekking gear.

The Everest Mountain Flight is a 50 to 60 minute scenic flight from Kathmandu that runs east along the Himalaya, turns at Everest and comes back. You never land in the mountains and you never leave the aircraft. Departures leave the domestic terminal at Tribhuvan International Airport between 5 AM and 8 AM, and the whole morning takes about two hours door to door.

The aircraft cruises at around 25,000FT (7,600M) in a pressurised cabin, so the cabin altitude is the same as any airline flight you have taken. There is nothing to acclimatise to and no altitude preparation to do.

Every passenger gets a window seat. The aircraft are configured one seat per row on each side, so nobody sits in a middle. You are invited forward to the cockpit one at a time for the view through the windscreen, and you get a certificate at the end.

Flights leave in a 5 AM to 8 AM window and you choose your slot when you book. Earlier is better, and it is not close: the Himalaya is clearest at first light and cloud builds through the morning.

Build it into a morning rather than a day. You are back in Kathmandu before most sightseeing starts, which is why people pair it with a valley tour on the same date.

Four Nepali carriers run the route from Kathmandu: Buddha Air, Yeti Airlines, Shree Airlines and Saurya Airlines. All four fly the same corridor, take the same time and guarantee a window seat.

We book whichever holds the slot you want on the date you want, and we tell you which carrier before you pay rather than after.

They are different products for different people, and the flight is not a lesser version of the trek.

Take the flight if you have days rather than weeks, are travelling with children or older parents, have a medical reason to stay low, or want to see Everest without giving a fortnight to it.

Take the Everest Base Camp Trek if the walking, the villages and the altitude are the point rather than the view alone.

Plenty of people do both, and the usual order is the flight first and early, because it is the one weather can take away.

Tell us the date and the slot you want and we hold the seat. Most people book two to seven days out in autumn and spring, and the 6 AM to 7 AM departures go first.

You can book on arrival in Kathmandu, and in October and April that is a gamble on a full aircraft. Make an enquiry with your dates and we will tell you what is actually available.

Pair it with a Kathmandu day tour on the same date if you want the morning to earn its keep, since you land back before ten.

The flight tracks east along the range and turns at Everest, so the peaks arrive in order and the crew names them as they come.

• Langtang Lirung and Dorje Lakpa, early, over the valley rim.
• Gauri Shankar and Melungtse, through the middle of the outbound leg.
• Cho Oyu, 8,188M, the sixth highest in the world, well before Everest.
• Everest, 8,849M, with Lhotse, 8,516M immediately beside it. This is the turn.
• Makalu, 8,485M, the fifth highest, off to the east.
• Ama Dablam, 6,812M, the one people photograph most and the one nobody expects.

Four of the world's fourteen 8,000M peaks in under an hour. On the way back the same peaks pass on the opposite side of the cabin, so both sides get the view.