A few days ago, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) airbus A320-233 ‘9N-AKW’ Sagarmatha encountered birdstrike at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in landing process. The flight departed from Bangalore in a night flight and during arrival at TIA it encountered a bird strike incident.
According to NAC officials, ‘9N-AKW’ Sagarmatha was then not released by engineers as as it requires maintenance before flying back again. The ill-fated aircraft now rests at TIA, grounded and waiting the maintenance.
Bird strike is one of the dangerous hazards in air security worldwide. However, bird strike incidents are unpredictable and cannot be blamed solely to NAC. Nepalese airports mostly TIA has encountered a lot of such strike incidents. Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has decided to operate TIA for 21 hours a day, but the authorities seem not to be cautious about air security as such incidents are occurring time and again. TIA started operation for 21 hours a day from May 21, 2018 to address the increasing air traffic and congestion and forgot that the air security is mandatory at day and night.
Looking at the birdstrike incident of NAC, TIA and CAAN must be responsible for air security and must have lots of precaution before such incident happens. However, no one will able to predict disaster.
European Union (EU) has not removed Nepal form blacklist pointing out the issues in air operating certificate, training and licensing and CAAN’s institutional capacity.
NAC being a national flag carrier, has not had a privilege to make any decisions easily, whether it is about commencing flights at new destinations or adding new fleets.
Everyone expect NAC to do great and appraise but they won’t accept any minor mistakes done by them as claimed by the airline. As relating to this, NAC has been facing a lot of negatives comments and news about its procurement process of Airbus A330-243 series aircraft though national flag carrier bought it with the aim of enhancing its air service to South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan and so on.
Recently, some newspaper has revealed some bitter truth about NAC which has really left bad impression about the corporation in other airlines and general people as well. Such news has not only made bad effects on NAC but also in Nepalese aviation sector.
Nepal Airlines Corporation NAC was incorporated on 1 July 1958 through enactment of Nepal Airlines Corporation Act. 2019 with the following main objective to provide air transport service to any person, agency or organization who needed such service for transportation of men or materials from one airport to another either within or outside the country.
As many years passes, many other airlines were established and enhancement of air services was done.
