Five months after being grounded due to technical problems in its engine, Nepal Airlines Corporation’s (NAC) Narrow Body aircraft Airbus A320 ‘Lumbini’ has been made airworthy. The NAC’s Airbus A320, with a ‘9N-AKX’ call sign, has been under maintenance in Israel for the past three and a half months.
The aircraft was grounded since Mangsir 15 (1 Dec 2023) last year, and it was sent to Israel on Poush 26 (11 Jan 2024) for maintenance. After receiving assurance from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) regarding the maintenance work, the NAC has sent Captains Nripendra Bhattarai and Arvind Raj Pahadi to Israel to fetch back the plane in a ferry flight to Dubai and a passenger flight from Dubai to Kathmandu.
According to Devendra Pun, the spokesperson for the NAC, as soon as the aircraft’s maintenance completion notice by IAI was received, the two captains were sent for the ferry flight. They aircraft handover was supposed to take place on Monday Yesterday.
“The repaired aircraft is scheduled to receive the aircraft from Dubai to Kathmandu on Tuesday with passengers,” said Pun.
The NAC has incurred a loss of nearly 2 billion rupees during the five months the aircraft was grounded. The aircraft, with 158 seats, used to generate an average of 13 million rupees in revenue per day.
After the aircraft was grounded, the NAC reduced flights to Delhi. “We cannot operate more flights to Delhi. We are managing flights to other destinations with three aircraft. However, the revenue earned from four aircraft does not cover the expenses of three flights,” Pun said.
The operation of Wide Body aircraft on short routes incurs losses. The operation cost of wide-body aircraft is significantly higher. However, the wide-body aircraft have not been able to generate profits on long routes other than Japan and Hong Kong. While operating wide-body aircraft on short routes like Delhi, the NAC has incurred losses.
The NAC purchased two wide-body aircraft in fiscal year 2074. Despite operating wide-body, narrow-body, and Twin Otter aircraft, the NAC has not benefited from other aircraft except narrow-body. While Narrow-body aircraft earned more than 1 billion rupees in profits, wide-body aircraft incurred a loss of more than 3 billion rupees in the last fiscal year.
