Don’t know whether the time has changed or the perception of people towards aviation has changed. After writing two different articles on highlighting the importance of Boeing 757 in Nepal’s aviation sector, I have seen indeed a positive response of the people as well as airline company(here referring to our own Nepal Airlines) towards its only operational power house of Nepal , yes indeed it’s the Boeing 757 ‘9N-ACB’ “Gandaki” retaining back their faith towards this aircraft. Through this short column, I tend to highlight the upcoming role of Boeing 757 in boosting RA’s presence in long haul as well as current sectors.
We generally tend to hear that with aircraft’s increasing age a lot of technical problem arises resulting in the frequent grounding of the aircraft but here in Nepal , the scenario is completely the reverse. For Nepal Airlines, its brand new Airbus 320-233 series aircraft get tend to involve in lot of technical issues than our Boeing 757 (barely 30 years old) and gets grounded on frequent events and I think we all are aware of this through newspapers highlighting every grounded incident of our aircraft.
In fact Nepal Airlines who holds a massive experience of operating Boeing aircraft for more than 35 years, its decision to switch to Airbus was quite strange as it didn’t had any experience of operating Airbus aircraft before. Though its completely the decision of its management but a good sign that we have seen is the inclusion of Boeing 757 along with upcoming Airbus 330 in its long haul sectors.
We had been hearing lot of rumors of phasing out the remaining Boeing 757 after the arrival of Airbus 330 but the good thing is the rumors were limited to rumors and the Boeing 757 will continue its dedicated service to the nation and once again will be flying back to the long haul sectors which it used to serve before. With five aircraft for serving international routes, inclusion of 757 will be a duo benefit in operating both in long and short haul sectors of RA due to its greater reliability and also the continuation of its supportive role in enhancing flight operations when Airbus gets grounded.
At last but not the least, it has been proved to us many times that 757 is still at her best and safe and reliable to travel and the myth of people being frightened in travelling in 757 should be avoided that it is old and is not reliable. Airbus is a new hope for RA but Boeing is its strength to thrive better.
