October 31: Nepal Airlines Corporation is preparing to operate flights to Narita of Japan after suffering a setback in its newly re-launched flights to Osaka. The state-owned airlines company of Nepal is preparing to operate flights to Narita from January 2020.

NAC, which has been operating flights to Osaka since August 29, has not found enough passengers along the route. Initially, NAC had scheduled to operate three flights a week to Osaka on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. But due to the lack of passengers, NAC reduced the number of flights to two per week – on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Although the number of passengers to Osaka is steadily increasing, NAC Executive Director Madan Kharel believes that operating flights to Narita would be beneficial in the long run.

From commercial point of view, Narita has better prospects for Nepal than Osaka. But Kharel said they had to opt for Osaka in the first place due to some technical issues. He said that the flag carrier of Nepal has completed all the procedures and has sought permission to operate flights to Narita. NAC will be operating flights to Narita by the time the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign kicks off, provided that Japanese authorities grant them permission to operate flights to Narita.

“We wanted to operate flights to Narita before Osaka but there were some technical issues. Now that we have already provided the required documents to Japan’s civil aviation authority, we will begin flights as soon as we get the permission,” said Kharel.

NAC is mulling to stop flights to Osaka once they get permission to fly to Narita.

NAC had been operating flights to Osaka from 1994 till 2007, after which it stopped the flights citing lack of aircraft. NAC re-launched flights to Osaka this year after purchasing two wide-body aircraft of Airbus.

Back in the 90s and 2000s, NAC used to operate flights to Osaka via Shanghai. But at present, it has been running direct flights to Osaka.