The national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is seeking labor permits for three foreign flight instructors from Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA).
Two French and one American instructors are available for NAC to train pilots to fly the upcoming new Airbus A330-243 wide-body aircraft. The corporation is seeking 3 month work permits and non-tourist visas for the instructors.
NAC had signed the agreement with AAR Corporation to buy two Airbus 330-200 series wide-body aircraft worth $209.6 million which is stated to be one of the largest ever aircraft purchase deals in Nepal’s aviation history. The agreement had a clause that Hi Fly would send three instructor pilots to train the local pilots here to fly the Airbus planes.
NAC has already published a notice regarding invitation of sealed quotation from all reputed pilot recruiting companies for supply of 62 pilots on contractual basis for different fleets of the national flag carrier. As per the notice published, 10 Captains and 10 First Officers (F/O) are required for the A330.
Besides, the corporation is preparing to send $68.20 million (approximately Rs 6.81 billion) which is the remaining money to pay for its first new Airbus 330-243 wide-body aircraft. The payment is to be done to the escrow account held by Norton Rose Fulbright in Europe for the aircraft that is due to arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) on June 27.
NAC had already paid $39.50 million (Rs 3.95 billion) as pre-delivery fee and $500,000 (Rs 50 million) as commitment fee for each Airbus 330-200 wide-body aircraft last year and earlier this month it had forwarded proposal to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) for the facility of foreign exchange to make the payment to which the ministry had forwarded the letter to the Nepal Rastra Bank requesting to provide the foreign exchange facility.
