KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 21
The Nepal Civil Aviation Authority has cancelled the renewal of the self-ground handling certificate for Thai Airways after it was found providing ground handling service for other aircrafts of other airline companies.
Jagannath Niraula, Deputy Director General and Spokesperson of the Authority said that the authority has decided not to extend the self-ground handling service that Thai Airways has been doing for a long time.
Thai Airways, one of the first passenger jet service providers to connect Nepal with the rest of the world, made its first flight to Kathmandu on 4 December 1968 and provided one flight per week before expanding its service to one flight per day in 1977. With a few skilled manpower and technical equipment with Nepal Airlines at the time, the CAAN had authorised the airline company to carry out self-ground handling service from TIA.
Thai Airways made its last flight to Nepal on 21 March 2020, before formally suspending its flights to the country temporarily two days later citing the COV- ID-19 pandemic. The CAAN has allowed self-ground handling services at TIA to Thai Airways and Air India and created provisions for other airline companies to receive permission for self-ground handling services in case they conduct 35 flights a week.
According to Gyanendra Bhul, information officer for CAAN, Thai Airways had been renewing itself-ground handling certificate despite not conducting any flights to the country since 2020. The CAAN had cancelled its proposal to renew its ground handling certificate for now.
However, it recently came to light that Thai Airways had been providing self-ground handling services to other airline carriers. For that reason, we have directed TIA to halt such activities," he said.
He said only commercial handling agencies and companies were authorised to provide MRO services and must have an identification permit from the civil aviation authority of their respective country to provide such service, while the service-receiving airline company also needed clearance from their respective aviation regulator to be able to receive the service. Bhul said Thai Airways had also provided MRO services to other airlines, including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, while it was operating flights to and from Nepal. Although the certificate has not been renewed at the moment, Thai Airways will be allowed to continue its self-ground handling service after resuming regular operations in the country," he said.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 21, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
