AVIATION
Shree Airlines Soars to the Top: Surpasses Buddha Air in Fleet Size
To reach Nepal from the USA, both these planes covered an air distance of about 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) in 25 hours in three nights and landed in Kathmandu on Tuesday afternoon.
Shree Airlines has successfully added two ‘Bombardier Dash-8 Q400’ aircraft with a capacity of 80 seats in addition to its existing Dash-8 fleet. Shree Airlines now has 10 fixed wing aircrafts and 8 rotor wings (helicopters), making the number of fleet to 18 in total.
The company took delivery of 4 Canadian-made Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 aircraft with 80-seat capacity, two in 2019 and two more in 2022. Before that, it introduced 50 and 70 seater CRJ aircraft for domestic flights after Saurya Airlines.Shree Airlines has two CRJ-200, two CRJ-700, and four Q-400 Turboprop aircraft. With the addition of 2 more aircraft Shree will be operating altogether 10 fixed wing aircrafts and a total of 18 fleet size including helicopters.
According to Shree Air’s manager Anil Manandhar, the Pilots flew these two planes all the way from Portland to Tribhuvan International Airport on Tuesday, 26th of March. The aircraft was being flown under command of Capt. Ritesh Karn and Capt. Biraj Rajbansi. The pilots and crew members have done such an amazing thing by ferrying two aircrafts to Nepal all the way from the USA.
‘9N-AOK’ and ‘9N-AOL’, the two new aircraft of Shree, were delivered by Manufacturer to Horizon Air, Alaska Airlines (previous operator) in June 2011 and March 2011 respectively. Therefore, both the aircraft are in the verse of completing 13 years of service this year
To reach Nepal from the USA, both these planes covered an air distance of about 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) in 25 hours in three nights and landed in Kathmandu on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr.Manandhar confirmed that ‘After completing the legal procedures of the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, these aircraft will be added to their domestic service destinations’.
Industrialist Banwarilal Mittal founded Shree Airlines with helicopters in 2055 BS at the age of 63.
Shree Airlines is the first air company to operate international charter flights from Nepal and South Asia region with various peace missions under the United Nations and World Food Program using its powerful Mi helicopters.
Apart from 8 helicopters, it has also been providing the service of bringing patients abroad for treatment from its planes, which has achieved success in a short time by starting international passenger and cargo transportation charter flights at special times and without having to bring air ambulance planes from abroad.
Two CRJs and one Turboprop aircraft have been grounded for technical reasons. However, CAAN has observed deficiencies in Shree Airlines’ Aircraft Maintenance procedure and performance. Lately, asymmetrical flaps extension, nose landing gear wheels falling apart were few major technical faults observed in Shree Airline’s fleets. CAAN has implemented few restrictions on Shree Airlines’ engineering privileges after finding many serious concerns.