As Buddha Air (U4, Kathmandu) commences a new route from Kathmandu to Kolkata, which started on May 27, and prepares flights to Guwahati in India's northeastern state of Assam, likely on August 3 according to Aviation Nepal, by August 2020 it wants to lease two narrowbody aircraft to fly to other key Indian cities, its managing director Birendra Bahadur Basnet has told the Kathmandu Post.
Then, by August 2021, the carrier plans to add two more jets and begin operations from Pokhara International in central Nepal once it becomes an international airport, construction for which is expected to be completed by July 2021, Basnet said.
Marketing director Rupesh Joshi told the Nepali news portal Ratopati earlier in May that the airline had also begun a preliminary study for flights to Patna in northeastern India, and was looking at flights to Delhi International from Nepalgunj once it upgrades to an international airport too, also expected in 2021.
Buddha Air's primary motivation is the growth of Indian outbound tourism, projected to almost double from 24 million in 2017 to 42 million by 2025, Basnet told the Kathmandu Post. Nepal saw more than 200,000 Indian tourists arriving by air in 2018.
“It’s a short-term calculated risk,” he said. “It’s a kind of preparation for us to set our course for exotic foreign destinations. The Kolkata route accounts for only 1% of our total number of flights, so the risk is low. If we succeed in the Kathmandu-Kolkata project, the sky’s the limit for us.”
The three frequencies on Kathmandu-Kolkata generate 216 seats in each direction per week, according to the ch-aviation capacities module, while its only other international route, twice weekly to Varanasi, accounts for 144 seats.
In February 2018, Basnet told the Kathmandu Post that the carrier was looking at both the A319-100 and the B737-8, following pitches from each manufacturer.
