Kathmandu, ANN
The flag carrier is going to reduce the flight frequency to its newly resumed route of Osaka, Japan. The carrier has been conducting three weekly flights to the destination presently. It has come up with a plan to cut off its flight for Thursday. It has schedule of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday every week to fly to Kathmandu-Osaka-Kathmandu sector.
Nepal Airlines had very recently resumed the flight in this sector after 12 years from August 29 last week. Since the inaugural flight, it flew to Osaka for two times till today. The occupancy of both the flights were pathetically low. Because of this, Nepal airlines has realized that the flight frequency needs to be readjusted and decided to cut off the flight for Thursday. Two flights a week can handle the low passenger occupancy for now.
Nepal Airlines has also confirmed to conduct two chartered flights to Narita, Japan on September 26 and October 02, to facilitate the passengers traveling in festive season. Because of the festive season approaching very soon booking for Nepal Airlines flight to Osaka from Kathmandu is very less. The last flight to Kathmandu from Osaka had only 95 passengers. The aircraft is straight in loss as it takes a huge operating cost to fly a wide body aircraft with 276 seat capacity for less than one third of the occupancy. The occupancy for Kathmandu-Osaka is even lower.
The carrier expects the passenger flow to be regular and as expected after the festive season ends in Nepal. The tourist season will also start by that time and occupancy could be expected to be better. After this the carrier will resume its three weekly flights to Osaka again.
