Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-China Joint Venture Airline, welcomed its second brand new Airbus 320-214 into its fleet, at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu, Nepal today at 11:04 am NST.

The aircraft, with the registration number 9N-ALV, was welcomed by a ceremonial water cannon salute after it touched down, arriving from Hamburg, Germany.

Minister of Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Jeeban Bahadur Shahi, graced the ceremony of welcoming the aircraft with Devnanda Upadhaya, General Manager of TIA, along with high level officials from CAAN.

The much-anticipated arrival was witnessed by Himalaya Airlines’ Vice President- Administration, Vijay Shrestha,Vice President – Operations, Jatinderpal Singh Dhillon, and H9 senior management team.

“With the arrival of the second Airbus 320, Himalaya Airlines team is highly inspired to work harder towards achieving excellence in our services” remarked, Vijay Shrestha, Vice President- Administration.

He further added “It enables us to bring new opportunities to connect Nepal directly with new destinations and contribute towards the economic development of the country and her people. The arrival of 2nd aircraft within its first year of operation is definitely a milestone for Himalaya Airlines as well as for the Nepalese Aviation industry.”The airline’s new A320 aircraft has 158 seats in two class configurations, 8 for Business and 150 for Economy, ensuring high level of flying comfort.

Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal- China joint venture, is established in August 2014. Himalaya Airlines, a full service carrier, started its scheduled flights operations from May 31, 2016 flying directly to Doha, Qatar and to Colombo, Sri Lanka on October 1 2016.

The airline had welcomed its first new aircraft MSN 6626, Airbus 320-214, Nepal registration number 9N-ALM, on March 9, 2016.The aircraft flew as promotional flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka on April 12, 2016 and May 3, 2016, offering special round trip packages.

This year, Himalaya Airlines will be flying directly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on February 10th and Yangon, Myanmar on February 24th. In the upcoming months of 2017, Himalaya Airlines plans to connect to Dammam, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Chennai in the first phase and later to Dubai, Hongkong, 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.

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.