Kathmandu, May 13

Domestic airline operators have faced losses of more than Rs two billion during the lockdown period.

According to the Airline Operators Association of Nepal (AOAN), as of today transactions worth Rs 2.51 billion have been affected since the government imposed the nationwide lockdown on March 24 to halt the spread of coronavirus.

As per AOAN, each fixed-wing aircraft has transactions worth Rs 35,000 per day on average while each chopper has transactions worth Rs 1.7 million a day on average during normal days, said Yog Raj Kandel, spokesperson for AOAN. “Based on these average transactions for each aircraft all the fixed-wing aircraft in the country would have done transactions worth around Rs 91 million while choppers would have done transactions worth around Rs 2.42 billion,” he said.

“Thus, this is the tentative loss of the domestic sector starting from the first day of the lockdown till today,” he said.

Currently, there are 28 choppers and 51 fixed-wing aircraft in operation in the country.

“The aforementioned amount is just a tentative figure of transactions based on normal days. The loss is even more as this is a tourist season and peak hour for the aviation sector,” Kandel said, adding, “The coronavirus has hit the sector very badly.”

Although a few numbers of rescue flights have been conducted during the lockdown period those cannot be considered as profit, he added.

Before the lockdown, AOAN had reported losses worth Rs four billion due to lack of passengers.

“Before the lockdown was imposed, we were facing losses due to lack of passengers. Due to travel bans imposed by various nations the number of foreign passengers had dropped while locals were also not preferring to travel by air,” Kandel said.

“Our losses are going to increase further as the government has extended flight suspension till May 31,” he mentioned, adding that the flight suspension is uncertain as the situation is getting worse each day.

Amid this, a number of chopper companies have reduced the wages of pilots and engineers while fixed-wing companies have furloughed their staffers.

Anil Manandhar, corporate manager of Shree Airlines, said that smooth flight operation is uncertain even though the government is preparing to resume domestic flight operation.

“The government is preparing to resume domestic flight operations which will not be reasonable as the situation is yet to normalise,” he said.

“Even if the government allows flight operations no aircraft will be operated in the Tarai region for safety reasons and flight movement is already very low in hilly regions,” said Manandhar.

Moreover, without road vehicle movement only air travel will not be convenient for passengers, he added.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 14, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.