Kathmandu, March 17

The number of flight cancellations by international airline companies has been rising due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Korean Air and Thai Airways, for instance, have slashed the number of Nepal-bound flights from today. Korean Air had already reduced its flights to three from four earlier due to the coronavirus.

And now it has announced it will conduct only one flight a week starting from today.

Meanwhile, Thai Airways has also slashed its regular flights and announced that it will be conducting only 10 flights in total to Nepal till March 30. While Tibet Airlines and Sichuan Airlines had suspended all of their Nepal-bound flights since a month ago, Jazeera Airways and IndiGo Airline followed suit on Thursday.

Likewise, the number of direct flights from China to Nepal has dropped from more than 70 per week to 10 per week.

Currently, China Eastern, Air China and China Southern are conducting flights to Nepal.

Similarly, Himalaya Airlines, which offered daily services in Beijing, Guiyang, Changsha and Chongqing sectors, has temporarily suspended all its operations to China.

Buddha Air has also suspended its flights to Varanasi in India from March 15 till April 30.

Meanwhile, Nepal Airlines Corporation has also slashed the number of its flights to Delhi, while it has suspended flights to Mumbai, Bangalore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. Moreover, it has also suspended all its flights to Qatar until further notice. With this, NAC is now flying only to Dubai, Delhi and Japan.

Aircraft movement at Tribhuvan International Airport has dropped to around 30 flights at the moment from around 100 flights a day previously.