KATHMANDU, June 10: The government has made it mandatory for the charter party for flights abroad to disclose the list of passengers and fare to be charged to the airlines company.
The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) in a statement on Wednesday said that travel agencies as charter party are required to submit the application for charter flights attesting list of passengers approved already by the concerned diplomatic mission of the country where the flight is being operated to and the fare charged to each passenger.
The ministry after receiving complaints about overpricing of tickets for recently operated charter flights to Hong Kong and Japan took a decision to this effect. “Travel agencies had charged exorbitant fees from passengers while chartering Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) flights to repatriate foreign nationals and Nepalis from Nepal to Hong Kong and Japan have drawn serious attention,” read the statement.
The travel agencies had reportedly overpriced the tickets for the special charter flights. Following the concern, the government has formed a committee to probe into the travel fare charged by charter parties and travel agencies for repatriation flights to Hong Kong and Japan.
The committee will investigate the fare and basis for selling overpriced tickets to the passengers by the charter party and travel agencies. The committee is entrusted with the responsibility to produce a fact-based report and submit it within seven days. The probe committee led by Joint Secretary at the MoCTCA Suresh Acharya has Director at Department of Tourism, Air Transport Division Head of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Surendra Thapa and Joint Secretary at MoCTCA’s Law Department Rajan Nepal.
The MoCTCA has said that the charter flight permission will be granted only if the proposed fare rate is reasonable on the basis of the commissioned fee to be paid by the airline and tax liability to be paid to other countries.
The NAC operated seven flights to Japan and three to Hongkong during the lockdown period. NAC had clarified that the charter flights to Narita scheduled on June 4 and 7 were carried out at the request of a travel agency and that there was no involvement of the Japanese Embassy in Nepal on the charter flights.