KATHMANDU, MARCH 8

With the aim to excel in safety, Himalaya Airlines - a Nepal-China joint venture - has become the first airline in the country to successfully achieve ISO 9001-2015 QMS certification.

Himalaya Airlines is currently operating international flights to various destinations in the Middle East, Asia and South Asia.

Established in 2014, the airline received the air operator's certificate from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal on March 9, 2015. As the airline prepares to mark its seventh anniversary on Wednesday, Kiran Lama of The Himalayan Times caught up with Vijay Shrestha, vice-president at Himalaya Airlines, to understand the restructuring of the airline, challenges due to COVID, impact of Ukraine-Russia crisis and many more. Excerpts:

What are the changes following the ownership restructuring of Himalaya Airlines in September 2019?

As the management of the company has serious commitment towards the progress in Nepali airlines and tourism realm by focusing on aviation safety, it has remained constant since inception. As the vice-president, I've been contributing in tourism and aviation through Himalaya Airlines.

Since the company's core strategy is to enhance and promote tourism of Nepal via aviation, we've been mainly focusing on drawing Chinese nationals, as the Chinese outbound market is conspicuous for its large volume and rapid growth in both departures and expenditure. Himalaya Airlines is the only Nepali airline

that was operating flights to five prominent cities of China in the past. And at present we have already received permission to fly to five additional cities from the Nepali and Chinese authorities. We are planning to expand our services to more cities in China for post-pandemic tourism recovery of Nepal. Moreover, with an aim to provide reasonable airfare, we've also been strengthening our connectivity in the Middle East as well as the Malaysian market, which are the top destinations for Nepali migrant workers.

Simultaneously, we've also promoted tourism at these destinations.

Himalaya Airlines initially focused on unconventional routes, but they were later terminated. What was the reason?

When we commenced our operations back in early 2016, Colombo was among the destinations and we added Myanmar to the list a year later because we thought these were prosperous ventures for Nepal. And if you look at the data, the arrivals from these nations were outstanding. For example, in 2017 around 70,000 tourists had arrived from Sri Lanka, while the numbers of visitors from Myanmar was a little less comparatively.

Considering high tourist footfall from these countries, we were encouraged to start our flights there.

But later we realised that these tourists were entering Nepal via the Sunauli border. And it's a challenge to lure tourists from these regions via air because coming to Nepal through the Gaya Airport is easier and more convenient for them. Therefore because of insufficient market for us, we later terminated our services in these sectors.

What were the main challenges due to the COVID? Were any of your plans stalled or need to be shelved?

Not only Nepal, COVID-19 pandemic has battered the entire global aviation industry due to travel restrictions.

Many commercial airlines across the globe have shuttered their business since they had gone bankrupt. And some of them even slashed the routes and grounded the aircraft.

The entire civil aviation industry is still struggling to overcome the economic turbulence encountered due to COVID-19 since the past two years. In our case, we too were heavily affected during the initial days of the pandemic as we had to halt all our commercial flights for a certain time.

Back then we had operated rescue flights to bring back Nepalis stranded abroad on the request of the Nepal government and passengers. Before the pandemic struck, we were planning to expand our fleet, for which we had also received permission from the government. But we had to abandon the plan due to the pandemic.

What are the risks due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis?

The latest Russian-Ukraine crisis has affected the global economy, including the airlines industry. The spike in the price of crude oil in the international market due the current tension has resulted in increasing the price of aviation fuel. The aviation fuel price now costs $1,300 per kilolitre compared to $700 per kilolitre in December of 2020, which is nearly double. As aviation fuel is the largest cost-component for flight operation, if the price continues to soar, it will have a huge impact on our business.

Do you have any grievances with the government?

For a joint-venture company like us, we expect the government to facilitate us. However, sometimes it gets hard to get aviation-related permission from the government even if it is inscribed in the law.

For example, the government had shut down our self-grounding facility at the airport despite the fact that we had obtained the licence from the CAAN. Nevertheless, since we're a foreign direct investment (FDI) company, we're dedicated to excel in safety, on time performance (OTP) and most primarily, in service to our customers.

A version of this article appears in the print on March 9, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.