Kathmandu, Sept 28: The national flag-carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), has started operating direct flights to Guangzhou of China.
The NAC operated flights on the Kathmandu-Guangzhou-Kathmandu route from September 27. Although the Nepal Airlines had set a plan to operate flight to Guangzhou from September 25, it was possible only on Saturday. The flight was not possible on September 25 due to some technical reasons, NAC stated.
NAC Spokesperson Manoj Kumar Shah said the plane that flew towards Guangzhou from Kathmandu on Saturday afternoon had returned to Kathmandu with 107 passengers from Guangzhou.
NAC has prepared a schedule of weekly three regular flights to and from Guangzhou. Accordingly, the first flight is scheduled for September 28 and on October 16, on October 19 and on October 23.
Thereafter, direct flights would be operated towards Guangzhou every Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday.
The NAC stated that the one-way fare from Kathmandu to Guangzhou is set at Rs 30,000 and the two-way ticket at Rs 50,000.
Currently the China's airline China Southern is operating regular flights on the Kathmandu–Guangzhou route. From Nepal, Himalaya Airlines has also been operating regular flights on this route.
Operation of regular flights to Guangzhou, which has a high number of Nepalis, is expected to be financially beneficial to the corporation. With the Guangzhou flight, the corporation will now be operating regular flights to 11 destinations in nine countries.
NAC has stated that at present, international flights are operating to Doha in Qatar, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in India, to Bangkok in Thailand, Dammam in Saudi Arabia and Narita in Japan through two narrow-body and two wide-body aircraft currently with it.(RSS)