NewBiz Report
KATHMANDU, July 25

Nepal’s domestic air carriers have witnessed a reduction in passenger volume following the Saurya Airlines crash on Wednesday.

While Buddha Air, Nepal’s biggest domestic carrier, has seen around 10% reduction in passenger volume since Wednesday afternoon, around 20% people canceled their Yeti Airlines flight, representatives of domestic airlines, said.

Rupesh Joshi, director of Marketing, Sales and Ground Handling Department at Buddha Air, said Buddha has not witnessed any flight cancellation so far but the passenger volume has dropped by 5 to 10% since Wednesday afternoon.

“It is natural that the fear factor affects the passenger movement after a plane crash,” said Joshi. 

Sudarshan Bartaula, spokesperson for Yeti Airlines, echoed Joshi regarding the fear factor. 

“Yeti saw cancellation of flights by around 15% to 20% after the plane crash on Wednesday,” Bartaula told New Business Age over the phone. “The flight bookings have dropped today (Thursday).”

He said that it might take a few more days for the resumption of regular passenger flow.

In 2023,  266 domestic flights, on average, took off and landed daily at the Tribhuvan International Airport, according to the TIA office of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).

“Normally 225 to 250 domestic flights land and take off at the TIA,” said Subhash Jha, spokesperson at the TIA . “However, only 178 flights landed and took off on Wednesday.”

Following the crash, flights were halted for some hours which also contributed to the decline in overall flights.

Though the domestic carriers of Nepal, including planes and helicopters, had flown a record 4.46 million passengers in 2022, the number dropped to 4.15 million in 2023, according to CAAN’s statistics.  

Buddha Air recorded the highest passenger movement last year, flying 2.57 million passengers. Yeti Airlines came second in the list with 717,030 passengers, followed by Shree Airlines with 605,338 passengers.

Similarly, Saurya Airlines had carried 122,571 passengers last year.

Along with a slowdown in the economy and expensive air fares, frequent air crashes have emerged as major concerns for the air travelers.

Despite air travel being considered the safest mode of transportation, Nepal has so far recorded 108 air crashes in its aviation history, killing 959 individuals, according to CAAN.

Pilot Manish Ratna Shakya remains the sole survivor in Wednesday’s plane crash. Shakya is being treated at the Kathmandu Medical College in Sinamangal.

A Saurya Airlines Bombardier CRJ 200 plane with registration number 9N-AME veered off to the right and crashed on the east side of the runway, shortly after taking off from Runway 02 (Koteshwar side) at 11:11 am, CAAN said in a press statement. 

Most of the passengers on board were the staff at Saurya Airlines, headed to Pokhara for carrying out C-check of the aircraft. However, three among the deceased belonged to the same family–father, mother and their child.

Questions have been raised about the performance of the regulator—CAAN— for allowing Saurya Airlines to accommodate the wife and child of an airline employee in the ill-fated plane carrying maintenance crew.

The plane had caught fire in the accident leading to the death of 18 people including a Yemani national, on board. 

The bodies of the deceased were taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital at Maharajgunj, Kathmandu for autopsy. Doctors at the hospital have said that the bodies of the victims will be handed over to the relatives after identification, which might require DNA tests as some bodies have been charred beyond recognition.