The disarray in the flight schedules of Royal Nepal Airlines (RNAC) could be lowered to 33 percent from the present 50 percent, if the national flag carrier acquires a third 757, Managing Director of RNAC, Mohan Prasad Khanal said Wednesday.

“We have only two 757s in the international routes at present. If one is grounded, our schedules go into disarray by 50 percent,” Khanal said at an interaction program organised to discuss the deteriorating condition of RNAC.

He further said RNAC is operating in loss. “The loss a few years ago was 2.5 billion rupees. It is now one billion rupees,” he said. The RNAC is now undergoing a reform process, according to Khanal.

Representative of Nepal Tourism Board, Tek Bahadur Dangi, said, the whole tourism sector of the country has been suffering a lot from the irregularities in the RNAC flight schedules.

“Just a few days ago, more than 100 Nepal-bound Japanese tourists returned back to Japan from Shanghai, when the RNAC plane remained grounded in the city for five days,” Dangi said.

“Such incidents will not only hamper the image of RNAC, but also the image of Nepal. Tourists will think twice before coming here,” he said.

Basanta Chaudhary, a member of RNAC’s Board of Directors, said, the privatisation process of RNAC should be carried out cautiously. “The government has announced the policy of privatising RNAC, but the privatisation must be for its betterment and not for making its condition worse,” Chaudhary said.

Most of the participants repeatedly urged RNAC to be more organised and minimize incidents of  grounding of planes, like that of in Shanghai recently.

Nepal Chamber of Commerce organised the program.