KATHMANDU: The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has decided to hand over the responsibility of providing commercial ground-handling services at the Gautam Buddha International Airport located in Bhairahawa to Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC).
As construction work of the airport is about to be completed, CAAN has agreed to entrust the responsibility of ground-handling services to NAC while making other necessary preparations to start operations of the airport.
According to CAAN’s Director General, Rajan Pokharel, the authority has agreed to hand over the aforementioned responsibility to NAC but there are a few issues that need to be settled before the agreement is signed. He added that CAAN is working on the necessary preparations to finalize the agreement.
Initially, there were plans to hand over the responsibility of the services to a foreign company but now since the government itself will be looking after the operation of the airport, CAAN has decided to hand over the responsibility of ground-handling services to the state-owned airline company without any competition.
Nepal Airlines has also been handling the ground-handling operations at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.