Nepal Airlines reached second spot in terms of passenger traffic
Kathmandu – 19 October 2016
Nepal Airlines has managed to reach at second position in terms of number of passengers it flew over the year gyrating to a great extent from its preliminary situation.
The passengers’ traffic grew exponentially at 90 percent at the second half of 2016, with 178,799 passengers from January to June to reach at second place with Qatar Airways at the top as per TIA.
Flying at eight international destinations, Nepal Airlines got massive boost when it added two of the Airbus 320 aircraft into its fleet last year and resuming flights quickly to Dubai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.
After acting independently due to political reasons and blind management, Nepal Airlines have done remarkably well increasing its market share to 10.76 percent and plans to fly to Guangzhou which is the third largest city in China, by the end of this year.
But due to recent earthquake that occurred in April and fuel crisis due to economic blockade by India, international airline traffic in TIA has dropped 3.14 percent in the first six months with 27 international airlines serving Kathmandu flying 1.66 million passengers between January and June this year.
The chairman of the Airline Operator’s Committee-Nepal, Mr. Shantanu Sen Gupta said that despite the negative growth, the airlines have resumed its normal flights since September and the plunge in the passenger traffic can be held responsible on the free-visa, free-ticket scheme announced by Gulf countries and Malaysia in June last year, due to which recruitment companies stopped sending migrant workers to employment destinations. Meanwhile, there was 12.06 percent drop in aircraft movement during the review period and the country’s sole international airport handled 70 international flights daily according to TIA.
While Qatar Airways carried 187,666 passengers with a growth of 11.22 percent in one year topping the list, low cost carrier air Arabia which stood third after Nepal Airlines flew 166,106 passengers with a growth of 14.89 percent.
India’s Jet Airways slipped to fourth place after reducing the flight frequency from five to three daily flights in August last year dropping 15.78 percent of its passenger’s traffic with 154,119 passengers.
It has been operating three daily flights in Kathmandu- Delhi routes and two flights on Kathmandu-Mumbai route from October.
There were increment in passenger numbers of Fly Dubai and Oman Air at 9.49 percent reaching to 144,087 and 29.63 percent reaching to 92,049 respectively.
Malaysia’s national flag carrier Malaysia Airlines saw significant drop down to 48.67 percent flying 45,250 passengers while Thai airways saw rise of 20.49 percent to 80,520 during review time and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways had 80,520 travelers flying which is a drop of 2.37 percent.
New to Nepalese sky, Himalaya Airlines carried 2,124 passengers in the first six months and Chinese carriers Air china, china Eastern, China Southern and Sichuan Air saw drop particularly by 55.80 percent and carried 56,774 passengers.
Also, there was a huge drop of 35.13 percent in its number of passengers of Turkish Airlines and the number reached to 38,443 at the first half of the year.
