GF-A330 From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2001, 1643 posts, RR: 3 Posted (11 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 881 times:
Indian ban on PIA jolts Nepalese tourism
ISLAMABAD (PNS): The already-weakened Nepalese tourism industry received a further jolt when the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) decided to suspend all its flights to Nepal for an indefinite period after Indian banned PIA planes to fly over Indian territory.
PIA has been forced to suspend its flights following the ban on its flights using the Indian airspace. Airline officials claim that the suspension of PIA flights will have a critical impact on the tourism sector of Nepal, as there will be a further decline in tourist inflow.
"The tourism sector here will definitely be affected with the suspension of PIA flights," said a Nepalese official here.
"PIA used to carry many international tourists to Nepal," said Dewan. "The suspension of flights will further drop the tourist inflow."
In a peak tourist season, PIA used to fly five times a week. However, PIA officials remain optimistic regarding the resumption of flights after the SAARC Summit.
Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Reply 1, posted (11 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago) and read 849 times:
I always thought it was more practical and convinient for the tourists to travel to Nepal via India especially since more people travel for tourism there too
Indianguy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (11 years 4 months 2 weeks 5 days ago) and read 831 times:
Western Tourists in particular are known to prefer a "circuit" approach, covering a number of cities in one round trip.
Nepal has been traditionally part of a popular tourist circuit that includes points in India like Delhi, Khajuraho and Varanasi as well as cities outside like Bangkok.
Hence you see direct flights using A320/757 eqpt between even VNS and KTM, even though VNS is otherwise a domestic airport.
So i dont think that this ban should affect Nepali tourism in any way.
Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (11 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 13 hours ago) and read 797 times:
In the 1992 PIA A300 crash in Kathmandu 150 plus of all the 168 people killed on board were from Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and some other European countries, USA and Canada as well as Japan, Korea, Nepal and Bangladesh, there were only 10 or less Pakistani's on board including the crew. So perhaps the airline was popular on the route with transit passengers
Lj From Netherlands, joined Nov 1999, 4141 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (11 years 4 months 2 weeks 3 days 12 hours ago) and read 793 times:
Airmale, is right. PIA is one of the airlines which is used extensively by Europeans to get to Nepal if they only go to Nepal. The reason is probably that PIA has more European destinations and provided veryt good schedules to/from Nepal. Air India doesn't serve so many European as PIA does. Moreover, fares on PIA are very attractive (at least exAMS).
However, Indianguy is also right. Nepal is often sold together with India. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that AI will benefit from this as DEL is served by a lot of European airlines aswell.
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