NAC very near to confirm plan of buying 2 wide body aircraft
29 August 2016, Kathmandu
National Flag carrier Nepal Airlines of Nepal has called a board meeting to make a formal decision for expediting the process of procurement of new Airbus 330-200 wide body series aircraft in their existing fleet. The meeting will be conducted next week to prepare the final authorized decisions.
After the approval of board on the decision the formal procedure for buying the illustrated aircraft will initiate formally.
The airlines is planning to buy Airbus 330-200 series aircraft of Airbus that will have capacity of 250 to 280 seats for flying the long sector routes. The last two jets delivered by Nepal Airlines are also produced by Airbus. The two 320-200 series aircraft have capacity of 158 seats. Nepal Airlines also has 2 jets from Boeing of 757 series which are 3 decades old one of which is already in the retirement process. These aircraft were manufactured in America and have capacity of 190 seats.
Airbus 320 series aircraft cannot fly long haul routes. This narrow body aircraft can fly only for 4 hours in 1 leg and doesn’t have seat capacity equal to even Boeing 757. The 330-200 series aircraft Nepal Airlines is planning to buy can do a continuous 9 to 10 hours flight in one leg. That is why it is essential to buy wide body aircraft according to an official of airlines.
Managing director for Nepal Airlines Mr. Sugat Ratna Kanshakar had unveiled his ambitious vision to improve the system expand the fleet of airlines with two wide body aircraft within two years last January and as a result all the processes have been initialized.
A cost of Nepali Rupees 7.5 Billion has been estimated to be spent by the airline to buy these aircraft. The airline has already undersigned of loan agreement of 1 billion rupees from
Employees Provident Fund last year. Nepal Government has also committed to allocate necessary amount for the purchase process during last fiscal year’s budget speech of the country.
