Nepal Airlines Corporation defends its Airbus A330 purchase agreement

-KATHMANDU

The stated owned carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) is defending its purchase agreement of two long range Airbus A330-200s due for delivery in June and July 2018, as a report from the Office of Auditor General stated the airline purchased the two aircraft illegally by violating Financial Bylaws.

The carrier has accused of using an agent or a mediator to purchase the A330s and for issuing a global tender instead of a direct one via Airbus. NAC calls the report baseless, and denies it used a mediator.

Nepal Airlines will take the delivery of two A330s from an order placed by Hifly (Portugal), as part of a foreign consortium led by AAR (US) that also includes German Aviation Capital. The aircraft serials are 1845 and 1854.

Spokesperson for NAC, Mr. Rabindra Shrestha said, โ€œThe agreement cannot be said to be done through a mediator as we have signed the agreement with consensus among all the three companies.โ€ The A330s, originally due by March 2018, are expected to fly to Tokyo and Seoul.

Meanwhile, the report also states that the corporation had been operating Chinese-made MA60 aircraft incurring losses of Rs66.7 million annually, while it loses from the Y12e amount to Rs39.4 million. โ€œThe corporation does not seem to have made a solid working plan to operate these aircraft at a profit,โ€ the report said.

Even though the corporation has aimed of flying 9,168 flights in the domestic sector annually, it has been operating 4,538 flights only. The corporationโ€™s expenditure has increased which has resulted in less income, the report said.

0 Shares:
You May Also Like