Three out of four planes belonging to Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) are out of service, disrupting international fight services for the last two days.
Approximately 800 passengers in Kathmandu, Hong Kong, Doha, and Dubai have been affected by the grounding of a NAC narrow-body plane on Tuesday.
The narrow body plane was grounded due to a technical glitch in its hydraulic system.
As many as 156 passengers bound for Hong Kong from Kathmandu were flown to their destinations by procuring air tickets of other international flights, after a narrow-body aircraft named ‘Sagarmatha’ was grounded, said Ramesh Paudel, spokesperson for the NAC.
“We are providing them with hotel accommodations and arranging flights to their final destinations,” said he.
The Corporation has lost Rs 10 million following the last-minute cancellation of the flight. The corporation was forced to manage accommodations and arrange flights for the stranded passengers as per the international standards, said Paudel.
The corporation has a fleet of four planes including two narrow-body and two wide-body models, according to Paudel. One wide-body aircraft is in Italy for a through examination (c-check) for the last two months.
On the other hand, out of two twin-otter aircraft used for domestic flights, only one is operational. The other twin-otter aircraft has been out of service for a long time due to technical issues, Paudel has said.
Spokesperson Paudel said, "NAC has two wide-body 330, two narrow-body 220, and two twin-otter planes in operation. Of the four planes, 9N-ALZ is flying to Italy via Dubai today for repairs. The company's ALY airbus is being repaired in Italy. The airbus expected to arrive within August.
According to the Corporation, the problem seen in narrow-body plane is a short-term and will be resolved within a day or two.
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