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Kathmandu Monday February 26, 2001 Falgun 15, 2057.
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Set an example
The explanation put forward by the Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) in
its so called "white paper" is to bring up more questions than it answers. The
controversial deal has already dragged in the Prime Minister who had presided over a
cabinet meeting that cleared the way for RNAC to bring in the jet despite earlier bar by
the concerned ministry to do so. The ministry had asked the state owned airlines to abide
by existing norms, rules and laws. The very first contradiction in the RNAC paper is the
price tag of the lease. It had vehemently been maintaining that the net cost was 3350 US
dollars per flying hour. Now it has come out with a figure of 3886 US dollars per flying
hour. According to its own figure, the cost per seat per month for the minimum guaranteed
300 hours comes to around 4518 US dollars. The net cost per month for the corporation,
according to its own released figures for the 258 seater jetliner will be almost 1.12
million dollars. This takes the RNAC figures at face values and presumes that there will
be no other additional costs than those given out by the corporation. In addition, RNAC
has not been able to explain why the age of the aircraft to be leased kept changing. The
Lauda Air Boeing 767 leased by RNAC is 12 years and 8 months old. RNAC had initially
stipulated the age of the aircraft to be leased at 5 years and later it was increased to
10 years. But nowhere has the airlines extended the age beyond ten years. The RNAC paper
is silent on this point for it is fully aware that the age was extended merely to acquire
the present aircraft.
The RNAC contention in its paper that it needed the aircraft to meet the
anticipated rise in air passenger traffic, could not be further from the truth.
Nepal’s tourist arrivals were already declining from December 1999. The figures prove
the point. By end of August 1999 -- presumably the figures used by RNAC to justify the
September deal -- the tourist arrivals overall had fallen by 13.69 percent compared to the
same period the previous year. The fall in the number of arrivals of Indian tourists was
33 percent and those from other countries 1.17 percent. There is, therefore, little or no
justification for the airlines to project unwarranted tourism growth and to acquire what
has not only become a white elephant but also a symbol of irregularity, if not downright
corruption. But above all, the manner in which the airlines management acted as it did
despite restraining directive from a parliamentary committee and a letter from its own
ministry, gives rise to suspicion of unfair play. That the CIAA is investigating into the
deal -- we hope it does a thorough deed with the help of Austrian government if necessary
-- should point to the seriousness of the issue to all those concerned. The sooner the
guilty in this deal is punished the better it will be for the country as it will help set
an example.
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