KATHMANDU: The government has planned to remove the diesel-powered vehicles from the Tribhuvan International Airport operating between terminal building and the aircraft.
It is now planned to be replaced by an electric bus. Accordingly, NEA has also sent letters to all the airlines.
The letter states that diesel buses will be removed and replaced by electric ones. The NEA has written to the companies to check the pollution of the existing buses, the number of seats in each vehicle, the year of purchase and the type of vehicle.
The airline operators are disillusioned with the NEA’s plan. The companies say that it will be impossible to implement the plan to put additional burden on the airlines which have not been able to recover from the epidemic of coronavirus.
Captain Rameshwar Thapa, president of the Association of Airlines Operators, said that the airlines that lost more than Rs 17.50 billion in the Coronavirus epidemic could not bring new buses by spending millions.
He said that there has been an attempt to run the bus from the private sector instead of the diesel buses operated by the airline company. NEA had tried to involve the private sector to operate buses inside the airport in 2004 , he added.
At the time, the process was halted after strong protests from the airline.
According to the Airline Operators Association, most domestic airlines now use their own buses to transport passengers from terminals to airplanes. In international flights, Nepal Airlines Corporation has taken charge of it.
The project has stated that the pollution standards set by the Department of Transport Management have been fully complied with and the third party insurance has also been provided for the ramp buses and other vehicles operating at the airport.
The plan to replace diesel buses has also drawn attention to the fact that these buses will become unusable, he said.
Comment