Nepal’s efforts fall short as EU retains Nepali airlines on air safety list

KATHMANDU: The European Union (EU) has resisted removing Nepali airline companies from its sanctions list.

The Department for Mobility and Transport of the EU has continued to blacklist 20 Nepali airline companies after releasing the most recent report on the air safety list.

Along with the government-owned Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), these organizations primarily comprise private airlines and helicopter providers.

According to information published in the EU’s official journal, “These air carriers are prohibited from operating within the Union or are subject to operational restrictions.”.

According to representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the government’s unwillingness to unbundle the CAAN is a major factor in the EU authority’s refusal to remove Nepali airlines from the blacklist.

The primary requirement for Nepali airlines to be removed from the list has been raised by the EU for a long time: the division of CAAN into regulatory and operational bodies.

Due to Nepal’s continued inclusion on the EU’s air safety “blacklist” over the past ten years, airlines registered there are not permitted to fly to EU member states.

Because of this, among other things, aircraft of the NAC are not permitted to fly to EU skies, but accessible use of Nepal’s skies is permitted for aircraft from EU member states.

The EU’s European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has been conducting safety audits of Nepali airline companies for the past 12 months. Although initially supportive, the EU agency reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s sluggish unbundling of the CAAN.

The Commission had issued a blanket ban on all airlines from Nepal flying into the EU on December 5, 2013. Nepal was formally asked by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations agency that monitors civil aviation, to divide the organization into a service provider and a regulator.

Even though the governments that were established at various points in time expressed their desire to pass the relevant laws, the bill has not yet been passed by the Federal Parliament.