The case for Why Nepal needs a Strong National Carrier
The first flight into Kathmandu’s Gauchar Airport, a Douglas DC-3 ‘Dakota’ landed in 1949 only thirty-five years after the first EVER commercial flight took place in the United States of America. And that first flight, whether born of the romance of travel or bearing VIPs projecting their importance, fired up the Nepali imagination. In a country of jungles, rivers, hills, mountains, and foot trails that formed the ‘highway system’, and even now described as inaccessible, the aero plane offered up undreamt-of possibilities. Air travel would open Nepal to the outside world in the late fifties and the far-flung Nepali cities, – often several days’ travel-time away – would thrum to the sound of the ‘Dakotas’. At the forefront of this amazing transformation would be Royal Nepal Airlines or RA. –the sometimes venerated, but often vilified, National Carrier of Nepal. Development of Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) planes like the Pilatus PC-6 ‘Porter’ and the De Havilland DHC-6 ‘Twi...