Nepal Airlines has resumed its Dubai operations after a four-year hiatus. An Airbus A320 flight was dispatched on Thursday to the destination with 158 passengers onboard.

As a promotional offer, it has priced one-way fare at Rs20,000 and Rs32,000 for a round-trip. The offer is valid through August, the airline said.

The national flag carrier will operate three direct weekly flights on the sector —  on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. The flight will depart at 11:30 pm from Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) and land at Dubai at 2:15 am (local time). It will return at 4:00 am (local time) from Dubai and land at TIA at 10:10 am.

“We expect a good business from the Kathmandu-Dubai route as we are connecting the sector at a right time,” said Ram Hari Sharma, spokesperson for Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC).

The September-November period is Nepal’s peak tourist season. In addition, autumn is Nepal’s main festival season when thousands of migrant workers and other Nepalis living abroad return home to celebrate Dashain and Tihar with their families.

Sharma said they have targeted yearly business of Rs850 million on the sector. “There has been a demand for double daily flights on the Kathmandu-Dubai sector, but due to the lack of aircraft, we are unable to operate twice a day,” he said. “However, we plan to operate daily flights in the near future.”

According to travel agencies, the flights on August 21 have been sold out and more than than 70 percent of the seats have been booked for August 23.

The UAE is the fourth largest destination for Nepali migrant workers. According to the statistics of the Department of Foreign Employment, in the last fiscal year, 52,793 Nepali migrant workers left the country for the UAE. More than 200,000 Nepalis are estimated to be working there presently. They send home nearly Rs80 billion in remittance every year.

NAC had stopped its Kathmandu-Dubai flights in 2012.

Meanwhile, the state-owned airline is set to restart services to Guangzhou, the third largest city in South Central China, by September-end. NAC’s plan to increase the number of destinations has been prompted by the arrival of two Airbus A320 jets last year. By the end of this year, NAC expects serving nine international routes compared to seven at present.