Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), the national flag carrier, finally received a new aircraft for international air service, on Sunday. This has happened after 27 years and many hurdles along the way to add new planes to the NAC fleet.
The plane — Airbus A320 — touched down at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA)at 4:34 pm, on Sunday, with Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Deepak Chandra Amatya led team of government officials and representatives of Airbus. The aircraft which is manufactured by the Airbus Company was welcomed amid a special function. With the arrival of the new aircraft that is named ‘Sagarmatha’, NAC now has a total of three aircraft including two Boeings — Gandaki and Karnali — for international air service. “After several ups and downs we finally have got the new aircraft,” said Madan Kharel while addressing a welcome ceremony of NAC’s first A320 on Sunday evening. He said that they have had to face trying times, always bearing a fear on whether NAC would be able to revive their glory days due to lack of aircraft.
The aircraft is part of an agreement reached in June 2013 to purchase two Airbus A320-200 aircraft. Kharel said that the other aircraft is expected to be delivered within April and NAC will start operations to Dubai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai and will also add a new destination, Guangzhau in China. As narrow-body aircraft alone are not sufficient to compete in the international market, NAC is also working on plans to purchase a wide-body plane in the near future.
Kharel said that they have a target of buying a wide-body aircraft by 2021. Prior to this, NAC also had a target to obtain two more narrow-body planes. The addition of the new aircraft to the NAC fleet is also expected to give a boost to the tourism industry at a time when air traffic is expected to almost double within a decade.
NAC officials said that they are planning to start services with the Airbus A320 from February 25. Both the aircraft are powered by engines made by US-based International Aero Engines and will have 158 seats, including eight seats for business class and the rest for economy class.
Minister Amatya said that the rapid expansion of global tourism market has made it necessary to enhance the quality of the country’s aviation service by making them more punctual and credible. “We have emphasised the importance of ‘air safety’ and prioritised it in our policy,” he added.
The Airbus aircraft purchased by NAC is a widely used aircraft in the world. “The A320 is a new partnership in aviation sector of Nepal,” said David Dufrenois, vice-president, Customer Affairs, Airbus. Sheel Shukla, marketing manager of Airbus said that the aircraft was the ‘most fuel efficient’ single aircraft presently available in the market.
The last time that NAC had bought aircraft was a Boeing 757 in 1988. After the arrival of another aircraft in April, NAC is planning to fly to various destinations in Asia including Hong Kong and Bangkok. As it had only two aircraft for international flights, the national carrier had been finding it difficult to provide effective and competitive service as most of the times one of the two aircraft remained grounded for ‘technical reasons’.
Source: The Himalayan Times
