NAC’s first Airbus to arrive by Q1 of 2015
KATHMANDU, NOV 07 -
Airbus has said that it will deliver the first of the two Airbus A320 aircraft ordered by Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) by the first quarter of 2015. The second jet is scheduled to arrive by the first half of next year.
“We are on the final stretches of assembling the aircraft,” said Airbus Senior Sales Director Sheel Sukla on Thursday. “We are proud to deliver the aircraft to Nepal, the new operator of Airbus.”
The Airbus A320 is fitted with Sharklet fuel-saving wingtip devices. “Equipped with Sharklets to deliver unbeatable economics and up to 4
percent reduction in fuel burn, the aircraft will be the cornerstone of NAC’s modernised fleet,” Airbus said in a statement.
The new A320 is also fully equipped with the latest Required Navigation Performance technologies, allowing the aircraft to fly precisely along predefined routes using state-of-the-art onboard navigation systems. This is particularly beneficial for operations at high altitude airports which are constrained by mountains such as the carrier’s main base in Kathmandu .
Airbus said that nearly 9,500 Airbus A320 family aircraft had been sold to more than 380 customers and operators worldwide, making it the world’s best-selling commercial jetliner ever.
On June 27, 2013, NAC had confirmed its order for two Airbus planes by signing an aircraft purchase agreement with the European planemaker. NAC’s aircraft procurement process had succeeded after a hiatus of five years. The company said that it would train the pilots from mid-December as part of the deal. NAC currently possesses two ageing Boeing 757s. The latest of the two planes was delivered to NAC in 1978. Since then, every effort to expand its international has failed.
On June 18, 2013, the carrier signed a Rs 10 billion loan agreement with the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) to buy the two aircraft it had been eyeing for a long time. NAC hopes to repay the loan in seven to eight years.
After the A320s arrive, NAC plans to resume services to a number of international destinations which were taken offline for lack of aircraft. Over the last decade, the number of international destinations has been slashed from 21 to four reflecting the spreading malaise within the carrier.
During its heyday, NAC used to operate flights to Amsterdam, Colombo, Dhaka, Frankfurt, Karachi, London, Osaka, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore and Vienna besides five Indian cities—Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Patna. Presently, it connects Doha, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Bangkok. NAC’s passenger share in the international sector stood at 6.8 percent last year. The carrier flew 213,837 passengers out of the 3.14 million fliers in the international sector in 2013.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
