Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, February 13:

Indian Airlines (IA) is introducing a new travel package for residents of Nepal, Bhutan and India from 16th February, 2005.

IA is extending ‘through fares’ to 23 cities in India from Kathmandu and vice-verse. The offer shall remain valid till September 30, 2005.

Giving details to The Himalayan Times, Nirbhik Narang, country manager of IA Nepal, said, “A traveller flying by IA can now fly to Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore via either Delhi or Kolkata.” The scheme also offers connectivity to 20 other destinations like Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune, Jammu, Cochin, Goa or Coimbatore etc via Delhi only.

“The beauty of the scheme is,” he said, “one can avail a stopover in Delhi or Kolkata for even months, and fly on to the desired destination on an open ticket.” These tickets can be bought from Kathmandu itself.

Talking about the fare structure, Narang said, “The fare will be 25 to 30 per cent cheaper than if one flew from Kathmandu to either Kolkata or Delhi, and then bought a separate ticket to a desired destination.”

As the fare and other benefits of the scheme are also available to people flying into Kathmandu from India, the scheme is likely to boost the traffic of Indian tourists to Nepal, so crucial for the country, felt Narang.