Kathmandu, August 17

Nepal Airlines (NA) will start operating direct flights to Dubai from August 18, 2016. The airlines will fly to the city three times a week on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The Dubai sector is a busy route for airliners currently operating in the route. The city has long been a major destination for Nepali migrant workers.

“There is currently a demand to fly to the sector daily,” says Ram Hari Sharma, spokesperson of NA. But the airlines, which recently bought two jetliners, does not have the capacity to meet the demand.

In 2011, the national carrier had announced that it would fly to Dubai four times a week. The airliner then only had two ageing Boeing jetliners in its fleet for international flight. Citing reliability issues of the ageing jetliner, NA had then stopped flying to Dubai.

The airlines currently uses 2 Airbus A320s and a Boeing 757 for international flights. The addition of Dubai sector makes the total number of international destinations the carrier flies to, eight.

The airlines expects to serve over 40 thousand passengers every year in the Dubai sector. NA expects the annual income from the sector to be around Rs. 1 billion.