Nepal Airlines leaves other international airlines behind

Nepal Airlines leaves other international airlines behind

January 03, 2017 – Kathmandu

After the addition of two brand new narrow body Airbus 320 series aircraft in its fleet, the flag carrier Nepal Airlines has topped the chart as the airlines transporting highest number of passengers from Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in 2016. Nepal Airlines has carried the highest number of passengers among all the airlines carrying travelers from TIA to international destinations.

According to the flight statistics from TIA, Nepal Airlines has flown around 276 thousand passengers across international destinations at a count of 2 thousand 2 hundred 49 flights in a period of nine months from January to September 2016 which is relatively high in comparison to the number of passengers it travelled in the same period last year. This makes a remarkable increase of 45 percent in the traveler transpiration by Nepal Airlines.

The addition of fleet expanded the international destination of Nepal Airlines and the relatively low fare is the main reason behind this success of Nepal Airlines to increase a heap of 45% more passengers in comparison to last year according to Corporate Director for Nepal Airlines Mr. Sugat Ratna Kanshakar.

Statistics of International Airlines passengers 

Source: TIA

Nepal Airlines added the two Airbus aircraft in 2015 after which it reached to position of number 5 in 2015 while it was in position of Number 7 in 2014 before the addition of Airbus Aircraft. And 2016 nine months statistics shows that it is in position of number 1 for 2016. While, the other international airlines passenger ratio has been decreasing continuously.

Nepal Airlines expects to welcome the first wide body Airbus 330 aircraft around September 2017 and the second six months later. 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.

Nepal Airlines has already operated in the long haul routes of London-United Kingdom, Frankfurt-Germany, Osaka-Japan, and Shanghai-China. The wide body aircraft will be slowly focused in these routes later. Nepal Airlines also targets to claim 16 percent of the international market share by adding 2 other Airbus 320 series aircraft soon after the addition of 2 wide bodies by making the number of fleet size 8 for international flights.