The Hindu Business Line : Royal Nepal Airlines bid to consolidate operations

This includes entering into equity-partnership with international carriers, restructuring the organisation, acquiring new flights and chalking out new revenue streams.

The carrier is in talks with international airline operators to enter into joint ventures, by offering them equity partnership.

"We are looking for partnership options with international carriers for RNAC. Though we would offer a minority equity stake to the partner, management control in line with the stake would be provided to the carrier," said the Nepal's Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Mr Dip Kumar Upadhyaya.

"We are in talks with various reputed international carriers for partnership options," the RNAC Managing Director, Mr M.P. Khanal, revealed though declining to divulge any further details. On whether any Indian carriers have approached RNAC for partnership, he replied in the negative.

Meanwhile, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which recently carried out the valuation for the company, would soon submit its report to the Nepal Government.

"The ICAO team was here in Kathmandu to study our operations for the valuation. They have already submitted the report to ICAO headquarters in Montreal and we should be getting the report any moment," Mr Khanal informed.

Additionally, RNAC is also in talks with various airline carriers to share its traffic landing and porting rights in several countries. "We have traffic landing and porting rights for about 35 countries out of which we use the rights for only about seven-eight destinations. We are also in talks with various carriers for sharing the landing and porting rights for countries including Korea, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Singapore. The company also plans to increase the frequency of its flights to Hong Kong, Dubai and Malaysia. In about four years we plan to start operating to Europe," said Mr Khanal.

The corporation with a staff strength of about 1,600 has two Boeings for its international operation. On the domestic front, four twin otters are in operation with the company planning to acquire two more soon.

"As a part of our restructuring exercise, we are considering various options, one of which includes hiving off our engineering department and offering its services to other airlines operating in Nepal," Mr Khanal added.