Nepal Airlines to resume Dubai flights after four-year hiatus
aTP- Arab tourism portal News – Dubai- The state-owned carrier of Nepal is resuming flights to Dubai next month, four years after it cancelled services due to fleet reliability issues.
Nepal Airlines has acquired a 158-seat Airbus A320, a narrow body aircraft, to operate three-weekly services between Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, and Dubai from August 18.
The airline stopped flying to Dubai in 2012 due to persistent reliability issues with its Boeing 757, a narrow body aircraft that ceased production in 2004.
Nepal Airlines will compete with Etihad Airways, flydubai and Sharjah who all operate daily services to Kathmandu from the United Arab Emirates.But it will be the only full-service carrier flying between Dubai and Kathmandu, with budget airline flydubai the only other airline operating the route.Local sales agent, Anta, expects the bulk of passengers will be Nepalese living in the UAE, mostly working as labourers.
Kumar Jagadeesan, Anta general manager, believes Nepalese would prefer flying with their national airline and said that fares would be priced competitively against budget airlines flydubai and Air Arabia.
The resumption of services comes a little more than a year since the April 25 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed around 8,000 people in Nepal.
The country’s tourism industry has struggled to rebound with visitor numbers falling 32 per cent in 2015, according to Nepal’s Tourism Department.Nepal is targeting for its visitor numbers to rebound by 50 per cent this year, Tourism Department director Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal told Australia’s ABC in April.
Jagadeesan said Nepal Airlines plans to increase services to daily flights from April next year depending on demand. He said there is demand among Emirati’s and European expatriate’s living in the UAE who want an outdoor holiday, whilst Nepal Airlines was in talks to sign interline agreements with European airlines so that passengers can connect through Dubai.
