Nepali airline starts India flights

KATHMANDU - Nepal’s campaign to bring one million tourists this year receives a boost this week with a Nepali private airline beginning flights to India.

Domestic airline Buddha Air, which went international last year with flights to Bhutan, Friday launches its inaugural flight to Lucknow, the main city in Uttar Pradesh.

“We are starting with a 47-seater aircraft but will switch over to a bigger one once it catches on,” Buddha’s marketing manager Rupesh Joshi told IANS. “By March, we hope to start flights to Kolkata.”

The 15-year-old airline, with an asset of $30 million and covering nine destinations in Nepal, will be initially running three flights a week to Lucknow in the evening - Wednesday, Friday, Sunday - with a return flight at night.

The inaugural flight with five passengers from Kathmandu, however, will return packed with 44 from Lucknow.

Joshi said the Indian authorities had given permission to run flights to four Indian cities - Lucknow, Kolkata, Varanasi and Patna.

Though Buddha was initially scheduled to begin the India flights last year, the plan had to be postponed as the Indian go-ahead came only in November.

The airline also plans direct flights between Lucknow and Pokhara, a prime tourist destination in Nepal.

The fare for now is Rs.3,500 one way, excluding the airport tax.

With the Lucknow flight, Buddha becomes the only private Nepali airline to fly to India.

Nepal’s national carrier Nepal Airlines operates flights to New Delhi but suffers from the reputation of being unreliable due to shortage of aircraft, maintenance problems and allegations of corruption.

Budget airline Cosmic Air, which had started flights to Delhi and Kolkata and triggered a price war in 2005, closed down due to a funds crunch.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)