KATHMANDU, Jan 15: Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), which used to seek funds from the government to pay its loans, has started to shoulder its own financial liabilities after an improvement in its daily businesses.
Since last July, the financial health of the state-owned airlines company is back on track. Issuing a press statement, the NAC said it paid a monthly installment of Rs 330.9 million to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) on Friday.
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Last time, the national flag carrier on July 14 paid outstanding dues of Rs 1.35 billion and on October 18 paid an amount of Rs 730.9 million to the EPF and the Citizens Investment Trust (CIT). According to Archana Khadka, spokesperson for the NAC, the amounts were paid to settle the outstanding dues that the corporation took while purchasing narrow-body aircraft a few years ago.
NAC bought two Airbus 330 wide-body aircraft and two A320 narrow-body aircraft taking loan from the CIT and the EPF. It purchased these aircraft at Rs 37.58 billion and had agreed to pay principal and interest every three months for 15 years. The corporation has to pay around Rs 1.13 billion in every installment.
After the COVID-19 pandemic hit the aviation sector badly, the NAC had been unable to pay the installment amounts for almost two years. However, it had started defaulting since April 2019 much before the onset of the pandemic. After it was able to resume its business, the corporation has regularly been paying the installment amounts since July 2022.
