Almost all domestic flight tickets have been purchased for the upcoming festive season of Dashain in Nepal. Sudan Kirati, the Tourism and Civil Aviation minister however, reached an agreement on Monday to decrease the proportion of tickets sold in the most costly class, increase the sale of tickets in the less expensive class, and drop air rates for domestic flights for passengers returning back after the festival. This deal will not be advantageous to passengers as the majority of travelers returning during Dashain have already purchased their tickets.
The cost of domestic flight travel is greater than usual due to the festival’s increased demand for tickets. The flight ticket rate from Kathmandu to New Delhi is a lot cheaper than some domestic flights inside Nepal. Passengers criticized the fare hike during Dashain since they couldn’t get affordable tickets. Sudan Kirati, the minister, met with the related airlines business personnels on Monday to discuss the recent rise in prices of air tickets due to heavy criticism on social media as well by the student union groups of different political parties.
The discussion’s conclusion came out as”The airline operators themselves have been affected by a number of factors, including the increase in the price of aviation fuel and airline spare parts, the unstable dollar exchange rate, the recently enacted VAT on air travel and passenger tickets, and the increase in passenger service fees and airport service fees”. In other words, the aviation merchants were able to ‘persuade’ Minister Kirati that they were under tremendous pressure by the unusual tax and vat by the government on the already expensive aviation sector.
“The government has given us the maximum fare rate that we can charge, we have not gone above that, so how can you say that the fare has been increased.” said one of the businessmen in the meeting.
According to Teknarayan Poudel, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, the Nepali government decided the upper and lower limitations of each flight segment in 2073 on the advice of the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority. Within the same parameters, airline businesses set fares in accordance with supply and demand market laws. Minister Kirati addressed the public’s issues at the meeting with a view to providing passengers with safe, dependable, effective, and accessible air travel.
