Nepal Airlines
Nepal · ROYAL NEPAL · Active
Airline Identity
History
Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation was established in July 1958 as Nepal's first airline, beginning operations with a single Douglas DC-3 flying limited domestic routes and short hops to Indian cities such as Patna, Calcutta and Delhi. Over subsequent decades it acquired aircraft from a range of Cold War-era suppliers reflecting Nepal's non-aligned position, expanded into turboprop, helicopter and jet operations, and became one of the country's largest employers and a major source of foreign-currency earnings by the 1980s. Nepal's domestic aviation market was liberalized in 1992, ending the airline's monopoly and exposing it to private-sector competition, while state ownership, under-investment and recurring corruption and mismanagement scandals weighed on its performance for decades. The airline was renamed Nepal Airlines Corporation in 2006, dropping the monarchy-linked 'Royal' branding a few years before Nepal itself became a republic.
Current Operations
Nepal Airlines Corporation remains Nepal's state-owned flag carrier, flying an Airbus-only fleet of A320s and a small number of A330-200s on domestic routes and a handful of international destinations in South and East Asia and the Gulf, from its Kathmandu hub at Tribhuvan International Airport. It holds codeshare and interline agreements with carriers including Druk Air, Japan Airlines and Kuwait Airways rather than membership in a global alliance, and it continues to grapple with heavy financial losses, an aging widebody fleet, and governance problems. Nepal Airlines, along with all Nepal-certified carriers, remains on the European Union's list of airlines banned from EU airspace over unresolved civil-aviation safety-oversight concerns.
Last verified 2026-09-02· Source: airline public disclosures, company press releases & aviation-industry reporting.