KATHMANDU, Aug 18
A new airline company, Himalayan Airlines, has come forward with the highest private sector investment in the sector to start international flights at a time when efforts to operate international flights by the Nepali private sector have failed one after another. It will cooperate with Tibet Airlines.
Himalayan will operate Kathmandu-Lhasa flights from October 28 with two Airbus A-319 airplanes. HIF Aviation Investment Company and Yeti World Investment Company will have major Nepali investment in the airline company that will invest Rs 2.50 billion in the beginning. Himalayan will have 51 percent stake and Tibet Airlines 49 percent in the airline company. The two airline companies are signing an agreement to start operation from October 28.
The Nepali tourism sector has taken this big investment for operation of international flights positively at a time when the national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has been losing its international destinations in lack of adequate planes. A total of 27 international airline companies are currently operating flights to Nepal resulting in flight of billions of rupees abroad every year. “We are moving forward with an aim of operating flights to different destinations across the globe with five planes within three years,” Suman Pandey, one of the promoters, says. The company plans to operate Kathmandu-Lhasa and Kathmandu-Chengdu flights with two planes in the first stage, according to him.
Yeti World is currently operating domestic flights through Yeti and Tara airlines. Tibet Airlines currently has nine 120-seater Airbus 319-100 planes while it has already placed order with Airbus for six more planes. The airlines, that is currently operating flights in different cities in China, will start direct flights to Europe from 2015. It also plans to operate direct flights to New Delhi from Tibet in the near future.
Yeti Airlines had also operated international flights through Fly Yeti.com while BB Airways was also in operation for some time with investment of non-resident Nepalis. Buddha Air, that has achieved huge success in the domestic sector, has been operating flights to Benaras, India even though it has stopped flights to Paro, Bhutan now. 
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