PIA stops flights to Nepal

KATHMANDU, Nov 18

National flag carrier of Pakistan, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), has stopped flights to Nepal after 17 years of operation even as the agenda of increasing air connectivity among the SAARC countries is being set for the upcoming SAARC Summit.

PIA, that had been operating daily flights keeping its own office in Kathmandu, will also shut the office down from December 15. PIA has been operating flights to different destinations in Asia, Europe and America with 30 airplanes, and has already placed order with the European manufacturer Airbus for seven more airplanes. It has not operated regular flights to Kathmandu from July. “We have stopped flights to Nepal due to internal reasons even though Nepal is a good destination for PIA. There was 90 percent occupancy in the flights to Karachi from Kathmandu, and 35 percent in those from Karachi to Kathmandu,” Nepal chief of the company Mohammad Hamid says.

PIA had started flights to Kathmandu in 1997 after Nepal and Pakistan signed bilateral aviation agreement in 1995. It had been operating flights to Kathmandu with an Airbus A-310 (200-seater). It had stopped flights for some time after an Air India flight from Kathmandu was hijacked on December 24, 1999.

Nepali workers were the main customers of the flights to Karachi. Passengers travelling to Afghanistan, Iraq, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries from Nepal generally used the flight. PIA has also stopped flights to Hong Kong and Thailand, along with Nepal, and shut down its offices there. “We have not shut down the office in Nepal only due to the upcoming SAARC Summit. We would have left on November 15, otherwise,” he adds.

President of the Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA) DB Limbu says pressure on flights from India to Nepal will increase after stopping of PIA’s service. “It is not nice for the service to be stopped as flights by international airlines help in expansion of bilateral relationship with other countries,” he reasons. “We had tried to resume operation through initiative of the governments of the two countries but to no avail due to internal problems of PIA,” he reveals.

PIA had operated 105 flights to Nepal last year catering to almost 30,000 passengers. A total of 27 international airline companies have been operating flights to Nepal now. It will fall to 26 after PIA’s withdrawal.