Nepal's national flag carrier starts scheduled flight of newly arrived MA60 plane

Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), the national flag carrier of the country, on Saturday conducted the first scheduled flight of newly arrived Chinese plane--MA60 from capital Kathmandu to Bhairahawa in southwestern Nepal.

After formal handover of two new Chinese planes, one 56-seater MA60 and another Y-12e on Feb. 8, NAC took approval from the regulator Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and then operated one of the new plane on Saturday.

The Nepalese national flag carrier received its second MA60 and Y12e on Jan. 26 and Feb. 1 respectively, two years after receiving the first batch of two aircraft from China as grant.

"We will be operating newly arrived Y-12e too soon as we are arranging the pilot to fly this plane," said Rabindra Shrestha, spokesperson of the national flag carrier.

Currently, there is only one pilot with NAC to operate the Y-12e and the NAC has also requested the Chinese supplier to make arrangement of pilot to operate plane smoothly.

The NAC on Tuesday made public the flight schedule for both MA60 and Y-12e after the arrival of new planes. According to the national flag carrier, they will be operated in the existing routes where the market has been largely dominated by the private sector carriers. The NAC said there will be more flights in the same routes after the arrival of new planes from China.

With the expansion of domestic fleet following the arrival of new Chinese aircraft, the NAC expects to increase its domestic market share to 20 percent from current around six percent.

With the addition of two new planes from China, the NAC has now majority of its planes made in China. Of the total seven planes in its domestic fleet, four are China-made while three are Canadian Twin Otters. Endit