KATHMANDU: State-owned Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) on Monday conducted a maiden flight to Narita City of Japan with the aim of expanding its business at a time when the deadly coronavirus has spread worldwide.
Following pressure from social networking sites and media, Nepal government has decided to suspend flights to and from coronavirus-affected countries.
The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday issued an interim order to the government to suspend flights to and from the coronavirus-affected countries, including China, South Korea, Japan, among others.
On August 29, 2019, NAC had launched a flight to Osaka of Japan. But after it failed to achieve the desired commercial result, it had taken permission to launch flights to Narita city. According to the permission, NAC is supposed to conduct flights three days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
A wide-body of the NAC on Monday flew to Japan carrying a jumbo team including lawmakers, journalists, and executive board members in a business campaign.
According to Archana Khadka, spokesperson of the Corporation, NAC has now two wide-bodies A-330 for international flights. They will conduct Kathmandu-Narita flights.
“Kathmandu-Narita flights had been planned six months ago. According to the plan, we conducted a flight to Narita on Monday,” said Khadka. A wide-body of NAC flew to Japan carrying 23 members at the expenses of the government.
Who are in the jumbo team?
Officials of the Corporation, bankers and journalists are in the team. According to the list provided by the Corporation, Pushpa Bhusal, Bodhmaya Kumari Yadav, Ganesh Pahadi, Sarala Yadav, Bal Bahadur Samsohang, Krishna Dhakal are lawmakers.
Similarly, Director General of NAC Rajan Pokharel, General Manager of Tribhuvan International Airport Devendra KC, NAC Managing Director Ganesh Bahadur Chand, executive members Achyut Raj Pahadi, Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane and Bishnu Raj Dhakal are in the team.
The introductory airfare of Kathmandu-Narita flight has been set at Rs 73,000 per person for a round-trip and Rs 37,000 per person for one-way.
The coronavirus has continued its march across the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared it a global health pandemic and urged the international community to take precaution from the virus. At this time, NAC has conducted its flight to coronavirus-hit country Japan.
Coronavirus has spread to Japan and already claimed some deaths in the country. Why did the NAC conduct the flight to the coronavirus-hit country violating the interim order of the Supreme Court? Questions are being raised on social networking sites.
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