Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China Joint Venture Airline,launched its first commercial flight with a direct flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka, the land of Jewels today. The flight was planned considering the special occasion of celebrating “New Year 2073”.

The Airlines had offered irresistible round trip fare for the passengers for this flight.The Airlines intends to help promote tourism between Nepal and Sri Lanka and enhance people-to-people contact between the two countries.

Carrying the passengers to Colombo, the new Airbus 320-214 took off from the Tribhuvan International Airport Kathmandu today at 0905 hours Nepal Standard Time.

The program of launching the flight service was jointly inaugurated by Wu Chuntai, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, W. M. Senevirathna, Ambassador of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Cheng Yiru, Chairman of Tibet Airlines.

Commenting on this inaugural flight, Vijay Shrestha,Vice President, Administration said, “We are glad to offer the promotional offer to our passengers, on the occasion of the Nepali New Year, for them to celebrate the Eve in Colombo. We are very thankful to our travel agencies for promoting this offer and getting us passengers in a very short notice. We would like to thank ambassadors of the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.”

The airline had offered the round trip fare of NPR 55,000 for business class and NPR 35,000 for economy class.

Himalaya Airlines, a full-service carrier, established in August 2014, has planned to start international flights operation from April, 2016. The airline has made full preparation in terms of training flight crew and maintenance personnel and has in place systems, people and infrastructure to start commercial flights. The Airline has scheduled its first destinations at Doha, Qatar and Delhi, India followed by Lhasa, Chengdu and Beijing in China a few months later. 

The airline had welcomed its first new aircraft MSN 6626, Airbus 320-214, Nepal registration number 9N-ALM, on March 9, 2016 at 14:25 NST. This aircraft carried the Prime Minister, K.P. Oli and his delegation on an official visit to Beijing.

Over the coming five years, the airline aims at acquiring 15 Airbus 320 family aircraft and will operate from Kathmandu to various cities in Asia and beyond. The company will introduce long haul wide body aircraft of A330 family in due course of time for the operation of direct flights to Japan, Korea, Europe, Australia, and America.

Tibet Airlines holds 48.99%of equity capital of the company, whereas the Nepalese side holds 51.01%