The government of Nepal has renamed the closest airport to Mount Everest to honour the first two men known to have climbed the mountain, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary. The two explorers achieved their feat in May 1953. This report from Charles Haviland:

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It was actually the New Zealand joint first conqueror of Everest Sir Edmund Hillary, who died a month ago, who inspired the building of the airstrip in the 1960s. And it's been a motor for the development of health, education and tourism in the area.

Now Nepal's tourism minister, Prithvi Subba Gurung, says it will henceforth be known as Tenzing Hillary Airport, also commemorating Hillary's climbing partner, the Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who died in 1986. As much as anything it's a tribute to the friendship between the two men and their families, which remained strong, with Sir Edmund visiting Nepal regularly until the end of his life.

Charles Haviland, BBC News, Kathmandu

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the purists
people who believe in and follow very traditional rules or ideas in a subject (here, traditional mountain climbers would only arrive in Nepal by walking, not by plane)

lands
returns to the ground (after flying)

a runway
the strip of land that a plane uses when it arrives at and leaves from an airport

slopes steeply upwards
leans or rises up at a very sharp or steep angle

joint first conqueror of Everest
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were together the first people ever to successfully climb to the top of Mount Everest

a motor for
a source of energy for something, made something happen

henceforth
from now on

Sherpa
a member of a Himalayan ethnic group who is skilled at mountain climbing. Sherpas are often employed as guides by visiting climbers

As much as anything
one of the main aspects is

a tribute
in praise of, a way of celebrating and highlighting something

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