November 15: Nepal’s aviation policy has made it mandatory for domestic airline companies to operate flights to remote areas. Air service providers, however, have been reluctant to do so.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation seems to be silent despite the fact that airline companies have pledged to make compulsory flights to far-flung regions.

Airline companies that are operating flights to urban areas need to comply with the provision to operate flights to remote region as per the aviation policy of Nepal and the social responsibility of the airliners. But, the airline companies are defying the aviation policy as they are just concentrated on city areas for hefty profit, bemoaned Hari Budha of Jumla.

Gyanendra Bhul, deputy spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), says that the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation bears the responsibility to implement the policy of compulsory flights to remote areas.

“If the policy to make compulsory flights to remote areas was mentioned in the Civil Aviation Authority Act, the authority would have the onus to execute it. Ambiguity in the provision on policy and act has brought the present situation,” said Bhul.

Nine airline companies including Buddha Air, Shree Airlines, Yeti Airlines and Saurya Airlines have not provided their services to far-flung regions. Tara Airlines, Summit Air, Sita Air and Nepal Airlines, the national flag carrier, have been operating flights to remote regions in the country.

Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint secretary at the Ministry of Tourism, said that they could not force airline companies to operate flights to remote areas.

“It is not easy to make flights to remote regions due to high cost and difficult topography,” said Lamichhane, adding, “We have to encourage new companies to operate flights to far-flung regions by providing discount on aircraft import, landing and parking fee.”

Buddha Air, the largest private airline company of Nepal in terms of aircraft number, has been operating such flights to only Surkhet, a hill district in Karnali Province. The airline operates one flight on Surkhet-Kathmandu route a day.

Officials at the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal say that airline companies are having a tough time operating flights to remote areas due to large size of aircraft. An official from the civil aviation authority says that companies are unwilling to go to remote areas and new places since they are making profit from their flights to convenient city areas.

Officials at the airline companies, however, claim that they can not operate flights to hill regions owing to small and short runways and shortage of passengers.

“For our aircraft to land, we need 1600-meter-long runway. But, the runways in hill areas are small for landing and take-off,” said an official from a private company.

Shree Airlines’ spokesperson Anil Manandhar said that flights could not be made to hill regions due to small size of runways. “We have to procure new aircraft as operating flights to the hill regions is not possible with the existing planes,” Manandhar added.

No different is the response of Mukesh Kafle from Saurya Airlines.

“Our airline is failing to operate flights to remote and hill regions due to small size of the runways,” Kafle stated. He, however, said that his company was planning to purchase new small-sized aircraft for flights to remote areas.