National Flag Carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) has paid a sum of 53 crores 9 lakh 55 thousand Rupees to the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and the Civil Investment Trust (CIT) as an installment of the loan it was granted during purchase of it Narrow-Body aircraft Airbus A320s and Wide-Body aircraft Airbus A330s.
Although, NAC has decided to pay the installment amount of the planes on the 15th day of each month the installment this time was paid at the end of the month. An official from NAC mentioned that while the installment for the narrow-body plane has been fully paid, the wide-body plane’s installment is still pending. Therefore, NAC has failed to paid the proper instalment amount in proper time like many times before.
Due to operational challenges faced by one of the narrow-body planes for the past one and a half months, NAC has encountered difficulties in making the installment payment on time and properly.
The official stated, “To pay the installment of the plane, we need more than 1 billion 10 crores Rupees every three months. However, we have been unable to pay even half of it. We are struggling to make payments according to the installment of the narrow-body plane, and the amount needed for the wide-body is much less.”
NAC has to bear a financial burden of approximately 35 crores Rupees in losses every three months for the installment of the narrow-body plane.
Previously, in August, NAC had allocated 53 crores 9 lakh 55 thousand Rupees to the Employee Provident Fund and the Civil Investment Trust. However, as the installment amount could not be fully paid, the debt burden on NAC has increased to 50 billion rupees.
NAC operates two narrow-body and two wide-body planes for international flights, as well as two twin-otter planes for domestic flights. However, besides the narrow-body planes, the operation of other planes does not benefit NAC financially. The airline is still struggling to meet its installment payments.
