The Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has yet to come out of its years-old crisis of existence. Both of its Boeing-757s were grounded due to technical snags this week. However, one aircraft that had developed faults in New Delhi returned to Kathmandu Wednesday. It had faced technical problems in its circuit breaker while starting the engines. The other Boeing still has serious cracks in its flaps. Worse, since the maintenance work is not possible at home, the Boeings have to be flown to Brunei. Such problems are anything but new to the beleaguered airline.

Unfortunately, the NAC still depends on two aging Boeing-757s to fly to almost 10 destinations in seven countries. Because of decades of poor management and lack of financial discipline, NAC has proved incapable of coping with the tremendous pressure to increase the number of its flights. Corporation officials say they are trying to add one more aircraft, but the problems go much deeper. At a time of competition among the airlines, the national flag carrier has been reduced to one or two aircraft, whereas private airlines that started from scratch have flourished in the last several years. The question, therefore, is one of restructuring both the ownership and the management of the NAC. It should be allowed to function on purely commercial principles, and a visible and substantial public participation in its stakes is indisputably a pre-requisite.