KATHMANDU – Operations of the country’s domestic flights, which were put off to stem the outbreak of COVID-19, have resumed after an interval of around two months.

Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the aviation regulatory body, has developed the flights calendar in a way to operate 64 flights daily for the domestic flight service company. The government had enforced prohibitory orders on April 29 to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Likewise, domestic flights have been put off since May 3 and international flights since May 6.

Assessing the present pandemic context when the regular flights have been put off at the Tribhuvan International Airport, the calendar is prepared allowing an interval of 10 minutes between flights. In normal times, a domestic flight takes off every two minutes. Also kept into consideration while developing the calendar was to avoid crowds in the airport terminals. According to TIA’s general manager Pratap Babu Tiwari, Buddha Air has been permitted to operate 31 flights while Yeti Airlines 15, Shree Airlines seven, Saurya Airlines three and three each for the airlines operating flights towards stock. The Airport will effectively enforce the health safety protocol issued by the Nepal government and airport for safe travel of the air passengers.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation had directed the CAAN to operate flights limiting their frequencies to 50 percent of total domestic flights effective from July 1 until another notice.