Himalaya Airlines Inaugurates Kathmandu-Shanghai-Kathmandu Flight

KATHMANDU, Dec 02: Himalaya Airlines has begun daily direct flights to Shanghai, China from today

An aircraft from Himalaya Airlines took off to Shanghai with 137 passengers from Tribhuvan International Airport at 9:20 am. The aircraft would land at Tribhuvan International Airport at 9:00 pm today with passengers. It will take 5 hours and 20 minutes to reach Shanghai from Kathmandu.     

According to the company, there would be a regular flight to Shanghai on every Saturday. It is the first flight of Himalaya Airlines to Shanghai. With this, Himalaya Airlines has expanded its service to nine different cities in China.     

At a news conference organised today at Tribhuvan International Airport to inform about the inaugural flight, Vice-Chairperson of Himalaya Airlines Bijay Shrestha said the direct flight to Shanghai, the main business and tourism hub, would further strengthen relations between the two countries.     

He expressed the belief that it would also help to attract more and more Chinese tourists to Nepal.     

Similarly, TIA General Manager Pratap Babu Tiwari shared that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Nepal would increase in the coming days as flights from China are being expanded gradually after the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Nepal, Xie Yu, mentioned that the Kathmandu-Sanghai flight of Himalaya Airlines would further strengthen relations between the two countries and it would be important from a business point of view.

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Himalaya Airlines operated flights to 5 destinations. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the airline is actively endeavoring to swiftly restore flight frequencies within a short timeframe, foreseeing a significant increase in flights to various destinations in China in the foreseeable future.

The current destinations serviced by Himalaya Airlines primarily cater to tourism. Pre-pandemic, China was catering for approximately 160 million outbound tourists worldwide. Post-pandemic, China is diligently working to recover and enhance tourism to various global destinations, among which Nepal remains a highly preferred outbound destination.