A ground-staff wearing a protective facemask transports bags off an arriving aircraft at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. AFP
International passenger numbers at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport dropped for the first time in four years last year, but domestic passenger growth in Nepal remained robust as airfares remain subdued due to intense and rising competition. Domestic airlines dangled cheap tickets to attract 340,727 new passengers last year.
Airport statistics show that domestic passenger traffic increased by a solid 11.96 per cent to 3.18 million last year. This translates into an average of 8,735 persons travelling by air daily. A decade ago, there were 1.37 million air travellers in the domestic sector.
Among the total domestic air passengers, 43,612 individuals flew with 10 helicopter companies.
Nepal’s international and domestic air passenger traffic has crossed 7.32 million with more than 20,000 travellers taking to the skies daily.
As per Tribhuvan International Airport statistics, domestic flight movement dropped by 3.93 per cent to 91,816 flights in 2019 as most airlines added larger aircraft into their fleets.
There were 124,255 flight movements last year, 74 per cent of them domestic. This means 340 flights take off and land daily at Kathmandu’s congested airport.
Three factors are putting more passengers into airplanes, said Tribhuvan International Airport spokesman Deo Chandra Lal Karna.
The first is an expanding economy and rising incomes. “The swelling middle class in Nepal, in particular, is pulling people towards air travel,” he said. The second reason is cheaper airfares.
“The domestic sector has witnessed a dramatic boom with airlines inducting larger planes like the 72-seater ATR-72. A bigger aircraft means airlines have more seats to fill, and as a result, they are competing more fiercely to cut airfares which has made flying more accessible,” said Karna.
The third reason is infrastructure. As airlines are bringing larger aircraft, it has created pressure on the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal to lengthen the runways at the country’s airports and expand other infrastructure, he said. “Today, domestic flights can operate during the night too. This has also helped to increase passenger numbers to some extent.”
Traveller movement has been fluctuating since 2009 due to the airfare structure and safety concerns, but the domestic airline industry went on a record breaking spree after the 2015 earthquake. Domestic passenger movement dropped to an eight-year low of 1.36 million in 2015 following the disaster that caused a severe economic downturn. But the very next year, passenger movement rebounded by 28.9 per cent to 1.75 million.
The sun shone brightly for domestic airlines in 2017 too, and they recorded a 39.47 per cent jump in domestic air passenger movement as they expanded their fleets to cater to growing travel demand. Domestic airlines flew a record 2.45 million passengers in 2017 as travellers chose to fly rather than drive over bumpy national highways which seem to be perpetually under repair.
The year 2018 was another bumper year for domestic airlines when they flew 2.84 million passengers, up 19.22 per cent from the 2017 figure. The carriers received 459,169 new flyers attracted by their low-fare schemes.
The rise in air seat demand has been largely induced by low fares, said Anil Manandhar, corporate manager of Shree Airlines. “Airlines have been able to maintain high load factors because of discounts. With airlines planning to add more aircraft to their fleets, low-fare schemes will continue.”
He said flying to Janakpur today costs 1,800 Nepali rupees ($15.80) and going there by surface transport costs 2,000 rupees. Shree Airlines on Friday started commercial flights on the Pokhara sector with its Bombardier Q400 Dash 8 high-speed turboprop airliner. The plane can carry 80 passengers. Most of the discounted tickets on offer are for off-season months like December-February and June-August.
THE KATHMANDU POST (NEPAL)/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
