The Tourism Ministry has decided to resume stalled air service talks with India and formed a seven-member panel to conduct negotiations.

A meeting has been scheduled for the third week of December in New Delhi. The main item on the agenda is opening new air routes.

The team will be led by the joint secretary of the Tourism Ministry and will include representatives from the Law and Foreign ministries and the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan), Tourism Ministry officials said. The delegation needs to be approved by the Cabinet.

The government has agreed to India’s proposal to schedule talks for the third week of December. Nepali officials had abruptly postponed a meeting previously planned to be held on October 20.

The three key items on the agenda are discussing entry-exit points over Janakpur and Nepalgunj airspaces, redefining the Kathmandu-Mahendranagar-Delhi (L626) route as a bi-directional route and developing Trans-Himalaya 2 airspace, officials said.

The Nepal government has requested India to provide three more air entry points in Janakpur, Bhairahawa and Nepalgunj. According to ministry officials, they have dropped the idea of discussing a cross-border entry-exit point over Bhairahawa as India has reservations about the route due to defence issues.

“The cross-border airspace over Nepalgunj will be an alternative to Bhairahawa. And it will not make much difference in terms of distance.”  

The proposal to review the airspace agreement was made with the aim of providing more cross-border entry and exit points for airlines that will be operating out of the international airports that are under construction in Bhairahawa and Pokhara and the proposed Second International Airport (SIA) in Nijgadh.

Nepal has been working to designate new cross-border airspaces for the last seven years. However, the plan has not been moving ahead due to poor aviation diplomacy. The planned negotiations have been postponed several times before.

The airspace agenda was endorsed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal in August 2014. The prime ministers of the two countries have directed the concerned authorities to meet within six months to resolve the issue.

A joint communiqué issued by the two sides at the end of the visit said, “The cross-border direct routes will facilitate flights between regional airports in Pokhara and Bhairahawa, and this will save time and money for air travellers and also improve air connectivity between India and Nepal.”

Likewise, the Nepali team will be discussing making the Kathmandu-Mahendranagar-Delhi (L626) route a bi-directional route. Most of the international flights departing from Kathmandu for destinations in the west are using this route. It has been operational since November 2009. It took nearly seven years for Nepal to open the airway.

The objective of making L626 a bi-directional route is to extend it from Kathmandu to Kunming via Bagdogra-Guwahati-Imphal, India in order to make the proposed Trans-Himalaya 2 airspace connecting Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe a reality.

Trans-Himalaya 2 airspace will be a moneymaking route for Nepal. If it is opened, it will provide the shortest way from China and the Far East to the Middle East and Europe. Implementation of this airspace will allow international airlines to fly over Nepali airspace, which means savings in fuel and distance for carriers and revenue for Nepal.

The route will also help environment protection with less carbon emission. It will help reduce congestion of westbound traffic flows across the Bay of Bengal.

China firmly approved the new route in 2014 when Nepal and the northern neighbour signed a revised bilateral air services agreement.