Alpine Air to start int'l flights

KATHMANDU, April 1: At a time when the national flag carrier has come under tremendous criticism for failing to operate more international flights, Alpine Air, a Nepali privately-owned company, is set to start international flights from June/July. [break]



Alpine is working to lease a Boeing 737-700 to start operations to three international destinations from Kathmandu — New Delhi, Dhaka and Bangkok.



“We are looking at June/July to start the operations,” said Hari Bhakta Shrestha, Chief Operations Officer at Alpine.



Commenting on the lease process, Ajay Ghimire, Deputy General Manager of Union Finance, a stakeholder in Alpine Air, said, “The lease process has already started and we are finalizing other pertinent issues like crew and maintenance”.



With a seating capacity of 124, the Boeing 737-700 is a recently produced version of the series. Boeing 737 is a short to medium range, single aisle, narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin engine craft derived from Boeing´s 707 and 727, the 737 has nine variants, from the early -100 to the most recent and largest, the -900.



Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), meanwhile, has already canceled a wet lease contract bid for a B-757-200 ER with North American Airlines and is now looking at a new aircraft purchase as per a provision in the budget announcement.



“The wet lease idea has been dropped and we are now looking to inviting tender for the purchase of a new aircraft,” Raju KC, spokesperson of NAC said.

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