KATHMANDU, MAY 30
Following the questions raised at the Parliament regarding the grounding of MA 60 and Y12E planes belonging to the Nepal Airline Corporation, the NAC has clarified that the corporation is in the final stages of evaluating the aircraft for sale after receiving lukewarm interest from airline companies to lease them.
Stating that the three aircraft are technically, commercially and economically unsuitable for operations due to excessive cost of insurance and fuel consumption, limited passenger capacity and difficulty in procuring spare parts as per the recommendations of the study committees formed at different times, the corporation has faced an operating losses of over Rs 777 million and Rs 1.90 billion in total losses while operating these aircraft from fiscal year 2014-15 till 2018- 19, as per a press release issued by the NAC today.
A meeting chaired by former NAC chairman Sushil Ghimire held on June 30, 2020 in the presence of former minister for culture, tourism and civil aviation Yogesh Kumar Bhattarai, and the board of directors of the corporation had decided not to operate the aircraft from July 30, 2022. The Ministry of Finance had then directed NAC on March 17, 2021 to proceed with the lease or sale process of the grounded planes.
On November 8, 2021, the management had formed a sub-committee to see if the aircraft could be repaired and operated.
However, due to the earlier decision made by the government, the re-operation process could not be continued.
As per the decision made by the government of Nepal and the board of directors of NAC in September last year, the corporation had issued two public notices at different intervals, calling interested companies to lease the grounded aircraft. After failing to generate any interest, the process of evaluation of the aircraft has reached the final stage in order to proceed with the sale process of two MA-60 and one Y12E aircraft, the press release reads.
A version of this article appears in the print on May 31, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
