Gandaki. The Dubai-Pokhara-Dubai regular flight that started on Wednesday remained encouraging for the fourth day on Saturday. The flight that landed at Pokhara International Airport at 6:05 pm on Saturday with 156 passengers and returned to Dubai from Pokhara with 83 passengers, said Binod Singh Rawat, information officer at the airport.

Earlier on Thursday, 122 passengers flew from Dubai to Pokhara via Fly Dubai. A total of 143 passengers had flown to Dubai from Pokhara. On Friday, the Pokhara-Dubai flight was cancelled due to bad weather. On Wednesday, 113 passengers came to Pokhara from Dubai on the first flight. On the way back, the plane took 152 passengers from Pokhara.

The tourism entrepreneurs of Pokhara, who are working hard to make this flight effective and sustainable, are excited to see the number of passengers on the initial day. Former Chairman of Pokhara Tourism Council, Pom Narayan Shrestha, said that the initial signal of the Pokhara-Dubai flight is positive and encouraging.

“The booking of passengers is also good, the tours and travels businessmen are also happy,” he said, adding that hotels and restaurants have come up with discount schemes targeting the passengers coming from this flight. Flight Dubai is scheduled to land in Pokhara at 6:15 pm and leave for Dubai at 7:15 pm every day, said Rawat, information officer of the airport.

Flydubai has started a Dubai-Pokhara-Dubai flight with a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft with a capacity of 165 passengers. Fly Dubai is the first airline to start regular commercial flights from Pokhara International Airport. Earlier, some airlines had operated international charter flights from Pokhara.

With the commencement of this flight, it will be easy to come to Pokhara from many countries of the world by making Dubai a transit. It is believed that this will contribute significantly to the tourism, business, employment and overall economic activities of Pokhara. Regular international flights could not be operated from this airport, which came into operation from January 2023.

Flydubai has started flights shortly after the government announced that it would take diplomatic initiatives to attract international airlines to Pokhara International Airport in the policy and program of the current fiscal year. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) had given permission to Flydubai for the Dubai-Pokhara-Dubai flight on June 9.

The government has waived various fees at the airport to attract airlines for international flights. Parking, landing and navigation fees at the airport have been completely waived till the end of September 2085. Similarly, the government has decided to give a 50 percent discount on ground handling fees.