Kathmandu, Aug 12: Buddha Air, the leading private sector airline in Nepal, has added 16th ATR aircraft with a call sign 9N-ANW to its fleet on Thursday to make the growing domestic flights more reliable.
According to Buddha Air, the ATR-72 aircraft with a capacity of 70 seats was purchased from Nordic Aviation, an American company known for buying, selling and leasing ships around the world.
This aircraft was previously flown by Spain’s Air Europa Express. Buddha was the 11th company to own this aircraft, which first flew in Brazil 13 years ago.
The ATR, which flew from France on Tuesday, arrived in Kathmandu on Friday afternoon via Albania, Cyprus, Riyadh and Muscat.
According to an official of Buddha Air involved in the purchase, this ATR aircraft was purchased by Buddha for about Rs. 640 million (US$ 4.8 million). This aircraft was purchased by Buddha in a consortium led by Himalayan Bank. Nepal Investment Mega Bank (NIMB), NMB and Everest Bank have loan investments in the consortium.
The market price of this type of new ATR aircraft is around Rs. 2 billion. Nepal has given exemption for purchasing old pressurized aircraft up to 15 years and non-pressurized aircraft up to 20 years old.
