Nepal has renamed the airport that serves as the gateway to Mount Everest after late pioneer climbers Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, the country's tourism minister said yesterday.
"The Lukla airport will now be known as the Tenzing-Hillary Airport. The cabinet approved the renaming of the airport on Sunday," Tourism Minister Prithvi Subba Gurung told AFP.
Set up with help from Hillary's Himalayan Trust in 1964, Lukla airport, 140 kilometres (87.5 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, is one of the busiest in the country during the spring and autumn trekking and mountaineering seasons.
"A part of the trail to reach the Everest Base Camp will also be named as Tenzing-Hillary route," the minister said.