Domestic airlines allowed to operate flights with full occupancy

KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has decided to allow domestic airline operators to operate flights with full occupancy. A meeting held on Friday at the ministry has taken such a decision after the airline operators refused to operate flights carrying just 50 percent passengers.

Earlier, the government had asked airline operators to operate flights with 50 percent passengers and increase the airfare. However, the airline operators refused to do so citing that they would incur losses and also passengers would not be able to afford expensive airfares.

Along with the new decision of the government, the airline operators have announced they will start operating domestic flights from September 21.

“Airline operators were already facing huge losses and again the government had proposed to us to carry only 50 percent passengers, which was not feasible. Moreover, passengers cannot afford very expensive airfares. Thus, we had refused to operate flights,” said Yograj Kandel, spokesperson for the Airline Operators Association of Nepal.

Domestic flights have been halted since March 11 in course of preventing the COVID-19 from spreading in the country. However, emergency, cargo and chartered flights were allowed to operate after obtaining special permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to allow airline operators to operate only 25 per cent of their flight schedule.