KATHMANDU, Dec 17: Nepal-India flight, suspended for the past nine months due to COVID-19 pandemic, has been resumed from Thursday.
A narrow body aircraft of the Nepal Airlines has flown towards New Delhi carrying 141 passengers at 11:20 am, according to the Tribhuvan International Airport Office.
Similarly, the aircraft is scheduled to return to Kathmandu today itself. According to the Nepal Airlines Corporation, the narrow body aircraft has flown to New Delhi carrying 135 passengers of economy class and six passengers of business class.
NAC Spokesperson Karishma Shrestha said that the occupancy of first flight resumed after nine months is very enthusiastic and two flights have been expected for New Delhi every day as like in previous days.
Shrestha shared, “The NAC, being very excited from India’s air transport bubble concept, has been involved to make flights. Resumption of flights has been expected in other two destinations of India soon.”
Both countries would make two flights in Kathmandu-New Delhi destination per day. Regular flights along Kathmandu-New Delhi route has resumed after governments of both countries decided to resume it under ‘Transport Bubble Mechanism’.
Nepal’s national flag carrier Nepal Airlines, and India’s Air India would make flight daily. The NAC had suspended Kathmandu-Delhi flight from March 23, 2020 due to lockdown following coronavirus pandemic.
The government had resumed international flights from September 1. However, flights to three Indian destinations — New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore — were not opened due to high infection rate in India.
The NAC has been operating international flights at nine destinations of seven countries including three of India. The NAC has two wide-body aircraft and two narrow-body aircrafts for international flights.
