Govt decides to resume flights to India and Bangladesh

KATHMANDU, NOVEMBER 26

The government has decided to resume regular flights to India and Bangladesh. A Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday has decided to resume flights to the two countries, which have been closed for the last eight months.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has stated that it is preparing to start a diplomatic process with both the countries to resume regular flights.

According to the ministry’s secretariat, the ministry is preparing to send proposals through diplomatic missions to both the countries.

After having needful discussions, the flight dates will be fixed accordingly, the secretariat stated.

Before March, two Nepali airlines (Nepal Airlines Corporation and Buddha Air) and three Indian airlines (Air India, Vistara and Indigo) were flying on Nepal-India route. Later, the government halted all international and domestic flights. However, it started operating repatriation flights and a few repatriation flights were also operated from India. Meanwhile, charter flights were scheduled later when the government resumed international flights from September 21.

According to the civil aviation ministry, there is a growing demand for regular flights between Nepal and Bangladesh as well due to the high number of charter flights during the lockdown period.

For resumption of flights, slot procedures have to be conducted again thus, the ministry is preparing for that.

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has stated that the slots will be managed based on the number of flights after the bilateral flights are confirmed.

As per Tribhuvan International Airport, 10 airlines are currently operating regular international flights. They include Nepal Airlines, Himalaya Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air Arabia, Malindo, Fly Dubai, UTA (Charter), Jazeera, Air China and SilkAir.

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