Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, July 8:

Comic Air has launched its scheduled flights to Kolkata, making it the second Indian city to be connected by the Nepali private airlines. Buddhi Raj Bajracharya, minister for culture, tourism and civil aviation flagged off the inaugural flight of Cosmic Air at Tribhuvan International Airport, today. From today onwards, Cosmic Air will be connecting Kathmandu and Kolkata three times a week — Friday, Monday and Wednesday, using Fokker-100 aircrafts. The airlines is offering its passengers its popular scheme ‘buy one get one free’ offer on Kolkata flights, too. “Cosmic Air’s service to Kolkata will be a milestone in boosting Nepal-India trade and tourism relations,” said Bajracharya, before boarding the inaugural flight. “We should jointly make efforts to lessen the misconception about Nepal’s internal security, especially in the tourist generating markets,” he said, adding that the government will lend its full support in facilitating tourist arrivals.

“India is a very big market both for tourism and business traffic. Kolkata is not only an important city from tourism point of view, it is a port city from where Nepal’s majority of foreign trade activities are being carried out,” said Capt R P Pradhan, executive chairman of SOI Group. Flights between India and Nepal have tremendous potentials and Cosmic Air aims to cater to the need of growing leisure as well as business traffic, he added. Pradhan, however, noted that limited seat allocation at present is a bottleneck for a full swing growth of Indian tourists inflow. He asked the government to review its policy and allocate more seats to private airlines. “If the government allows us more seats, we’ll operate daily flights and add one more flight to Delhi,” Pradhan said. He also informed that Cosmic Air will be flying to Varanasi from tomorrow. The airline will connect the famous Hindu pilgrimage centre three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The airline is also planning to fly to Bangkok and Yangoon from August this year. As per the tentative plan, Cosmic Air will operate four times a week to Bangkok and three times a week to Yangoon. The airline has also announced promotional fares for Kolkata-Kathmandu sector. One-way fare is Rs 4,480 plus tax and return fare is priced at Rs 8,640 plus tax. Under the ‘buy one get one free’, one-way airfare is Rs 5,425 and return fare is Rs 10,850 plus taxes. The offer is valid till August 31 and the free ticket is transferable and can be used for any leg of Kathmandu-Kolkata-Kahtmandu sector.