It's been nine long years since Nepali airlines have been barred from flying in the skies of the European Union (EU), and it's time they were allowed to do so.

Representatives of the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) are arriving Nepal sometime between October and November to do an air safety audit. There is room to be optimistic that the EU will remove Nepal from the air safety list this time, given the high score that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has given Nepal in its latest air safety audit.

Nepal had scored 70.1 per cent in the ICAO audit, much higher than the global average of 67.2 per cent.

The EU imposed a blanket ban on Nepali airlines in December 2013 citing safety concerns following a series of fatal air accidents. At least two air crashes were recorded annually from 2008 to 2012. The Sita Air plane that crashed near Tribhuvan International Airport in September 2013 killing 19 people, including seven Britishers, was the final nail in the coffin.

The EASA team will prepare its report in eight sectors, including legislation, institutionalisation, airworthiness, personal licensing, air operations, air navigation services, aerodrome and ground aid, and accident investigations. Of particular concern of the EU has been its demand that the aviation regulatory body of Nepal, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), be split into two entities, that of service provider and regulator, as awarding both functions to a single entity led to a conflict of interests. As demanded, in August last year, the National Assembly unanimously passed the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Bill and Air Service Authority of Nepal Bill. However, the bills have been held back time and again from being presented in the House of Representatives, apparently due to the vested interest of some influential officials in the CAAN body. Now the two bills can only be taken up after the new HoR convenes following the parliamentary elections on November 20.

Whether the EASA will lift the ban next month will depend on the government's ability to convince the team that the two bills will be endorsed in earnest in the next sitting of the parliament. The EU ban particularly affects Nepal Airlines, which could make good use of its wide-body aircraft to fly to destinations in Europe and beyond. Following the audit, Nepali airlines hope to fly to major destinations in Europe and the United States. The flag carrier was flying to places like London, Paris and Frankfurt in the Nineties with its narrow-body Boeing 757s, but it fell into bad times with the political parties interfering in its functioning and failure to add any new aircraft.

Direct flights from Europe would give a boost to tourist inflow, who normally come here for trekking and mountaineering. Before the onslaught of the COVID pandemic in 2020 that led to the shutdown of the country for months on end, about 250,000 visitors came from the EU countries. With the COVID pandemic coming to an end globally, Nepal is launching the Visit Nepal Decade next year to revive the tourism sector that has been the hardest hit. The campaign can only succeed if there is easy air access to Nepal.

Good initiative

In its bid to spruce up the city, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has issued a notice banning outdoor advertising, saying that it is making the city ugly.

Hoarding/digital boards and other means are placed on the walls of private and corporate houses without acquiring permission and even after expiry of their licences. Traffic police say such kinds of hoarding boards distract the attention of the drivers while driving, leading to fatal road accidents. KMC officials have requested all to remove such outdoor advertisements with effect from Wednesday.

Even the Patan High Court had imposed a ban on such outdoor advertisements. But the promoters of outdoor advertising have not paid attention to the court order, nor have they renewed their licences as required by law. KMC has said the municipal police would remove the hoarding/digital advertisements being placed in violation of the notice. The initiatives taken by the municipality is a welcome step, which will help keep the city neat and clean. Those who want to promote their products and services should approach the print and electronic media having wider public outreach. Such mass media will also benefit from the services they provide to the advertisers.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 23, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.