Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Ram Kumar Shrestha said that the European Commission (EC) was prompted to impose a blanket ban on Nepali airlines due to Nepal’s failure to improve air safety.

Addressing the 15th anniversary celebration of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) here on Tuesday, Shrestha said, “The European aviation safety agency had been raising safety issues in Nepal for the last five years. Unfortunately, we failed to improve ourselves. And the result was the ban on Nepali carriers. The ban has also raised a serious question over Nepal’s competency on the civil aviation front.”  

He urged all stakeholders to accord high priority to ensuring passenger safety because that only would satisfy the concerns raised by the international community.

Meanwhile, CAAN Director General Ratish Chandra Lal Suman said that CAAN had revoked the air operator certificates (AOC) of 39 out of the 56 airlines registered in the country. Currently, only 17 carriers (10 fixed wing and 7 rotor wing) have valid AOCs.  

According to Suman, Nepal has air service agreements with 36 countries that produce 5.765 million air seats annually. However, only 2.455 million seats, or 43 percent of the total seats, have been utilized.

The national flag carrier Nepal Airlines has been utilizing a mere 6.3 percent of the total available air seats. Amid growing concern over the EC’s ban on Nepali airlines, Suman said that CAAN had started work in three phases (short, medium and long terms) to address the deficiencies pointed out by the United Nations global aviation watchdog.

Meanwhile, CAAN said that its revenue jumped to a record high of Rs 3.52 billion in the last fiscal year. CAAN started making a profit from the previous fiscal year. Of the total revenue earned, its net profit stood at Rs 1.08 billion in 2012-13. It has planned to distribute a bonus this fiscal.

On the same occasion, Tourism Secretary Sushil Ghimire urged CAAN’s employees to focus on service improvement at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) stating that a small change can make big differences.

“There are lots of problems and complaints regarding the service and facilities at the country’s sole international airport; and given the existing services, we cannot promote the country’s tourism,” said Ghimire. He hoped that 2014 would be a good year for Nepal’s tourism sector although there were some disappointments in 2013.

At the function, CAAN awarded Buddha Air and Qatar Airways for best performance in 2013. Meanwhile, Chandragadi Airport in Jhapa and Surkhet Airport were named the best airports in 2013.