Namaste Air ready to take off

Namaste Air — a new domestic airlines — is ready to start its operation within this fiscal year.

"Namaste Air signed an agreement today with Agni Air to start flights with Agni's aircraft," said executive chairman of Namaste Air Raju Khatri.

Namaste Air has agreed to acquire Agni Air's two Dornier aircraft — in the first phase — to start its domestic operations, he said, adding that the airlines will also operate Agni's three Jetstream aircraft — in the second phase — from a month after its operations.

"From October, the airlines will have its own fleet of ATR 72-500 aircraft to operate," he added.

"Namaste Air has completed all the legal, technical and financial arrangements for its operations," said Khatri, adding that the airlines will fly to Pokhara, Bhadrapur, Biratnagar, Nepalgunj, Bhairahawa, Jomsom, Lukla, Dhangadi and Bharatpur, besides mountain flights.

The grounded Agni Air that has been in trouble due to its key promoter Sudhir Basnet's downfall in the real estate business has agreed to hand over its five aircraft — two Dornier and three Jetstream — to Namaste Air.

Agni Air had posted around Rs 280 million profit in the last fiscal year but the bubble burst in the real estate business has pushed its promoter Basnet to bankruptcy leading to the grounding of Agni's aircraft. Agni had around seven per cent share in the domestic air traffic while it was flying.

Earlier, Simrik Air had acquired Guna Air as the later was also in troubled waters.

Around seven airlines, including Nepal Airlines, are flying in the domestic sky that was opened after the liberal sky policy post-1990 movement.

At present, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has issued Air Operator Certificate (AOC) to 19 airlines, though all of them have not yet started operations.

Simrik Air officially starts commercial flights

Simrik Airlines has officially started its commercial operations.
The airline that had started operation with mountain flight a week ago on February 10, has also started scheduled flight to Pokhara from last Wednesday — February 13 — with a fleet of 19-seater Beechcraft, according to executive chairman of Simrik Airlines Rameswhar Thapa.
The airlines is planning to start more scheduled flights — daily two flights to Simara and one flight to Bhairahawa — soon, he said, adding that the airlines will focus on international safety standard.
Earlier, Simrik Air used to operate helicopter services only. But after taking over the management of troubled Guna Airlines at Rs 350 million last month, it has started its scheduled flights, Thapa added.
Guna Airlines faced rough weather after its promoters run out of the cash due to the problem in their housing and real estate business that has forced them to hand over the management of the airlines to Simrik Air.
Despite increasing number of domestic private airlines, most of them are flying on trunk routes due to competition leaving the remote destinations out of their network.
"Currently, the airlines is operating four mountain flights and three flights to Pokhara daily," according to sales and marketing manager of Simrik Airlines Prajwal Thapa.
Post-1990 government had brought open sky policy that has made it easier for the private domestic airlines to take off.

Guna Airlines to resume flights from Monday

Guna Airlines will resume its flights on Monday after 90 days of flight suspension.

The airlines had suspended its operation in March, citing technical problems in its aircraft. “We conducted our technical flight on Saturday and we will resume our commercial flights from Monday,” said executive director of the company Ghanashyam Acharya.

The company's management had previously planned to resume operations from April but due to the delay in the delivery of spare parts, it was not able to resume flights as planned. “Due to the lack of proper management of engine and spare parts of the aircraft, the company was unable to resume the flights in the stipulated time,” states the company's press release.

“To overcome the challenges we might face due to the suspension of our flights for three months, we have resumed our flights with a new management, marketing strategy and planning,” said Acharya. The company is preparing to sell one aircraft out of the three it has and only two aircraft will be operated for commercial flights.

Guna Airlines has a capacity to operate flights for eight hours a day, however the flight-hours will depend on passenger traffic.

The company has Ghanashyam Acharya as its executive director, Ram Prasad Koirala as director of Technical Division, Captain Anil Shrestha as director of Operation Division, Uttam Krishna Kharel as director of Quality Assurance, Captain Binay Bijukchhe as chief pilot and Captain Manoj Krishna Shrestha as director of Flight Security Division.

The company has three Beechcraft 1900D aircraft. The airlines started its operation on May 19, 2009.

Guna Air start domestic flight

Guna Airlines started its operations from today. Promoted by the Guna group of companies, it launched its flight in the Nepali sky with two Beechcraft 1900s.
"Currently we are flying on the Kathmandu-Pokhara-Kathmandu, Kathmandu-Biratnagar-Kathmandu, Kathmandu-Nepalgunj-Kathmandu and mountain flights," said Rajendra Shakya, executive chairman of Guna Airlines.
Shakya said Guna is concerned about safety measures and that safety plans are carefully followed and regulated on a daily basis under the guidelines of ICAO and Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN).Beechcraft 1900 -- a 19-seater aircraft -- simply called the 'Beech', is a pressurised twin-engine aircraft used as a corporate transport by several governments and the military around the world. The aircraft is capable of flying well in excess of 970 km/h and is the most popular in the domestic sector."With focus on safety and service, Guna aims to hold out a steady competition to the already established market-leaders in the aviation service sector," Shakya said.
The airlines has also brought various discount schemes -- for the time being -- for infant, group of 16 full adult fare paying passengers and for 11 full adult fare paying passengers.
The new airlines' entry in the national sky will centainly fuel competition, even though the Nerpali sky is not yet crowded.Guna empire was initiated as a small gold shop known as Guna Jewellers in Patan in 1984 and it has now grown into a multi-industry company in the short span of just 25 years.By 1997, Guna Cinema Pvt Ltd, Guna Co-Operative Ltd, Asian Food Cold Storage Pvt Ltd, Guna Colony Pvt Ltd, Guna Smriti Sewa, Gyan Bikash Secondary School, Stupa Housing Pvt Ltd were already in operation under the group, said the company.