Tourism Minister Rabindra Adhikari (MoCTCA) has directed to investigate on Nepal Airlines aircraft that canceled its commercial flight to Dubai and rather flew to Malaysia. The aircraft with passengers from Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Nepal delegates flew to Malaysia Monday morning to attend PATA Travel Mart by canceling Sunday night’s flight to Dubai.
Minister Adhikari in a press conference stated that action will be taken against every involved without compromising as it is a serious issue. Due to the flight cancellation, 63 passengers traveling to Dubai were accommodated at a hotel near Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) at Kathmandu and 156 passengers were accommodated at hotels in Dubai in corporations’ expense.
Corporation’s operational committee Chairman also stated that he has directed the General Manager of the corporation Sugat Ratna Kansakar to investigate on the topic and stated that they will provide information soon.
Team of 37 that includes Corporations corporate director Rabindra Shrestha, director of commercial department krishna Gopal Joshi with 2 other officials from NAC, and officials of PATA Nepal, Tourism Board, tourism entrepreneurs and media persons took off to Malaysia Monday morning at 9:30; 2 days before the event along with 65 other passengers. Among the 37 officials, 4 of them were provided with free tickets.
Sources from the airline stated that there was no coordination between the commercial and operational department of the corporation. The flight could have flown to Dubai Sunday night and flight to Malaysia could also be operated as the corporations other aircrafts were on standby in Monday morning.
Meeting on the topic was also held on NAC and GM kansakar stated that it was a mistake to cancel the flight and also stated that they could operate a flight to Malaysia even without cancelling the Dubai flight.
The corporation later stated that the flight to Dubai was cancelled due to the emergency.
