Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China joint venture airline, on Friday conducted its maiden flight to Kuala Lumpur—its third destination after Doha and Colombo.

The airline departed at 8:40am from Tribhuvan International Airport onboard Tourism Minister Jiwan Bahadur Shahi and officials from the ministry and Nepal Tourism Board, among others.

Commenting on the inaugural flight, Vijay Shrestha, vice president - administration, Himalaya Airlines said: “Himalaya Airlines is steadily growing its network of destinations. The full seat factor for our inaugural flight and the robust forward bookings we have received for Kuala Lumpur gives us confidence that this route will thrive.”

“We are proud to be the connection between these two cities and look forward to making this route as active for the global community as possible.”

The airline will be flying five weekly flights—Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday—on the sector. According to the airline, the two-way fare starts from Rs25,375, excluding taxes.

The airline has appointed Carnival Travel Sdn Bhd as its General Sales Agents (GSA) for Malaysia and it responsible for the airline’s sales and marketing, market development, reservations and ticketing services representing the airline.

Himalaya was established in August 2014 as a full service carrier.

It started its scheduled flights operations from May 31, 2016 flying directly to Doha, Qatar and Colombo, Sri Lanka on October 1, 2016.

It had welcomed its first new Airbus 320 aircraft on March 9, 2016 and the second Airbus on January 31, 2017. In the upcoming months of 2017, Himalaya plans to connect to Yangon, Dammam, Delhi, Ahmadabad and Chennai in the first phase and later to Dubai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Beijing, Lhasa and Chengdu as well.

Over the coming five years, the airline aims at acquiring 15 Airbus 320 family aircraft and plans to connect Kathmandu to various new destinations in Asia and beyond.