Kathmandu, July 29

Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has introduced a promotional airfare for flights to Osaka, Japan.

As NAC has already announced it will be operating regular flights to Osaka from August 29, the national flag carrier has offered a promotional airfare for marketing purpose.

According to the corporation, under this promotional scheme, passengers flying to Japan can buy one-way ticket at Rs 36,999, while the charge for round-trip passengers has been set at Rs 72,814, including value added tax.

Prior to this, the ticket price for Osaka was fixed at Rs 45,000 for one-way and Rs 77,000 for round-trip.

The promotional airfare has slashed the normal fare by Rs 8,000 for passengers travelling in Kathmandu-Osaka route.

“The promotional airfare for the Kathmandu-Osaka route is being offered for a limited time only,” said Navaraj Koirala, joint spokesperson for NAC.

As per him, the promotional airfare will last till the festival of Dashain. After that the airfare will be revised again, he added. Earlier, NAC did not have any plan for promotional airfare for Osaka flights.

The national flag carrier is preparing to operate Osaka flights three days a week — Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It takes around six-and-a-half hours to reach Osaka from Kathmandu.

NAC had initially planned to operate Osaka flights from July 14. However, the commencement date was postponed to August due to poor response from passengers. Stating that the flow of passengers is low till July-end, NAC decided to initiate the flights in August.

Earlier, NAC had operated commercial flights in Kathmandu-Osaka route twice a week in between 1994 and 2007. However, due to lack of aircraft and human resources, it had halted the service. Even in those days NAC used to suspend flights to Japan during monsoon season, when passenger flow declines.

The targeted passengers of NAC in Kathmandu-Osaka route are Nepali students studying in Japan and Japanese tourists travelling to Nepal.