KATHMANDU, Oct 27: Himalaya Airline's Kathmandu-Beijing flight H9 665 reached Beijing at 5:10 pm local time on Sunday.
This is the first-ever direct commercial flight between Kathmandu and Beijing, the capital cities of Nepal and China, respectively.
The arrival of the flight was welcomed at Beijing's Daxing International Airport by Vice-Chairperson of Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ms Luo Mei, Ambassador of Nepal to China Leela Mani Paudyal as well as other high-level dignitaries from the Chinese government.
On the occasion, Ambassador Paudyal said that the direct flight between the capital cities of Nepal and China would herald a new dawn in strengthening civil aviation cooperation between the two countries, and expressed the hope that it would help promote bilateral relations in trade, investment and people-to-people.
In today's inaugural flight, there were 59 passengers from Kathmandu to Beijing, and 70 passengers on the return flight from Beijing to Kathmandu, according to a press release issued by Nepali Embassy in Beijing. The flight will be operational three days a week - Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.