Kathmandu, February 14:

It seems flying to Mumbai, the business hub of India, will continue to be a difficult proposition for better part of this year too. Ever since the national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) suspended its flights to Mumbai about two years back, air connectivity to Mumbai has been lost as no other airlines plied in that sector.

However, tourism entrepreneurs and Nepal Tou-rism Board have been upbeat about getting the high-spending tourists from western India. Hopes of a resumption of air services between Kathmandu and India’s tinsel town were raised as NAC signed a codeshare agreement with Druk Air in January to begin flights in that sector.

But currently, the hopes have been dashed as Druk Air has reportedly been unable to get a preferable daytime slot to operate its flights from civil aviation authorities at Mumbai.

“We had signed a codeshare agreement with Druk Air about a month back since we didn’t have an aircraft to ply to Mumbai, and Druk Air was keen to fly in that sector,” confirmed Raju Bahadur KC, director, corporate at NAC. “But Druk Air has just informed us that it will not be able to fly because it could not get a preferred time slot from the authorities at Mumbai.”

According to the MoU signed between NAC and Druk Air, the agreement allowing the latter to fly in the Mumbai sector is valid for one year from the date of commencement.

The codeshare provides NAC rights to sell about 30 seats, besides 11 free seats in the 112-seater Druk aircraft, revealed sources. That would mean approximately Rs 5,00,000 in NAC’s kitty for a return flight to Mumbai. So, the twice a week flight to Mumbai would rake in about Rs 1 million per week for the NAC. But all this would materialise only when Druk Air begins to operate flights to Mumbai. But that wouldn’t be anytime before June at least, pointed out the source.

NAC is currently flying nine international flights to only four destinations; Kaula Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Doha after suspending its Delhi flights as well. During its heydays, when the carrier had two boeings, it used to operate 23 flights per week to 15 destinations.

“We plan to resume flights to Delhi by mid-April as the second aircraft, in maintenance, is scheduled to arrive from Brunei by March end,” claimed KC.