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Nov 3, 2021

Nepali Minister urges UK MP to lobby for erasing Nepal from EU ban list

FA News Desk
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Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Prem Bahadur Ale has met Baroness Verma, Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom today in London of the United Kingdom.

Minister Ale is in London taking part in the World Travel Market (WTM) in London,

During the meeting with British MP Verma, Minister Ale has requested to take initiation for lifting the ban imposed by the European Union on its sky to Nepal Airlines.

MP Ms. Verma is said to be a well-known figure about Nepali issues. Thus, Minister Ale also updated about the formation of two bodies – regulatory and service providers in the aviation sector of Nepal adding the Nepal Airlines has improved the number of issues raised by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Nepal Airlines aircraft

Nepali minister also asked MP Verma for lobbying British assistance for the construction of Nijgadh Airport

The European Commission’s decision to blacklist the 22 countries of all companies’ aircraft to the European skies since December 5, 2013. Among the list, Nepal is also included. Thus, Nepal Airlines has been facing problems as the EU has not permitted its sky to fly over. Thus, Nepal Airlines sources said the company has been incurring heavy losses.

However, in the beginning of 2020, praising the efforts taken by Nepal to ramp up and tighten its air safety norms, the European Union (EU) said, “EU has been aware of the progress Nepal has achieved in air safety and the registration of new Civil Aviation Bill in the Federal Parliament. It will be easy to go through the process to remove Nepal from its blacklist.”

ICAO, however, removed the country from the significant safety concern list in 2017. Air Safety Report 2020 took note of reduced decreasing air incidents, the adoption of modern safety systems, and enhanced efficiency of its workforce.