April 28: Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is resuming its flights to Japan after twelve years. The national flag carrier of Nepal will resume direct flights to Osaka with its two Airbus A-330 wide-body aircraft.

NAC completed all the documentation procedures months ago but the flight resumption could not take place earlier due to delay in obtaining aircraft operating certificate (AOC) from Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau.

NAC is currently preparing to publish its flights schedule after Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) approved NAC to issue tickets for the flights on April 25.

Madan Kharel, deputy chairman of NAC, informed New Business Age that the national flag carrier will start operating its flight to Japan very shortly.

He also informed that NAC will operate three flights a week to Osaka from Kathmandu.

NAC has already received the AOC from Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal for flight operation to Japan. 

Kharel informed that NAC is also planning to start direct flights to Narita International Airport in Japan. We will conduct four flights a week to Japan, twice to Osaka and twice to Narita, Kharel added.

The wide-body aircraft of NAC will take around eight hours to fly to Osaka directly from Kathmandu. Previously, NAC used to have transit at Shanghai while flying to Japan.  

Nawaraj Koirala, NAC assistant spokesperson, said that the one-way airfare for Kathmandu-Osaka flight is Rs 45,000 while the round-trip fare along the route will cost Rs 80,000.