Kathmandu, May 15

Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has scheduled three flights for Narita in Japan within a span of eight days.

An NAC aircraft departed for Narita today carrying 250 passengers. There were Japanese nationals on board the flight along with Nepali workers and students who had been stranded in Nepal due to the nationwide lockdown.

“After the Japanese government allowed the entry of migrant workers and foreign students the flight was chartered to take the respective passengers to Japan,” said Archana Khadka, spokesperson for NAC.

“All the passengers had their health check-ups done before they were allowed to fly to Narita,” informed Khadka, adding, “In the next two flights too most of the passengers are Nepali migrant workers and students with a few Japanese tourists.”

As per Khadka, the next two flights will be operated on May 17 and 22. “The flight today and the next two flights all have full occupancy,” she said.

Prior to this, NAC had conducted a repatriation flight on April 10 for Japanese tourists only.

On January 10 last year, Nepal and Japan had inked an air services agreement enabling Nepali airlines to fly to any international airport in Japan, except Haneda.

Earlier, NAC had started its commercial flights to Narita, however, due to the coronavirus all the flights were halted. In the initial phase, NAC had planned to operate two flights per week. As Narita is comparatively closer to Tokyo, NAC has always considered this flight operation to make it easy for Nepalis working and studying in capital city of Japan.

After the purchase of two wide-body aircraft, flights to Narita were first ever long-haul flights made by the aircraft. While NAC is struggling to expand its business for its wide-body aircraft, flights to Narita are expected to help improve its financial health. NAC had previously started operating flights to Osaka from August 29. Later, it withdrew the Osaka flights and started operations to Narita only.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 16, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.