When the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) lifted a four-year ban on Pakistan International Airlines operating in Europe in November last year, Nepal’s aviation industry thought that the 11-year-old ban on Nepali airlines too would be lifted soon.
However, that did not happen. When the European Commission issued its EU Air Safety List on December 13, 2024, Nepal continued to figure among the countries whose aircraft are banned from flying in EU skies.
The EU ban on 20 Nepali airlines was first imposed on December 5, 2013, following concerns over a series of aviation accidents and regulatory issues in Nepal. Concurrently, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), affixed a “Significant Safety Concerns” tag on Nepal, which was subsequently removed in 2017.
Nepal has a poor aviation safety record. According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, the country has suffered 42 fatal plane crashes since 1946; over the past three years, there have been eight air crashes in Nepal, killing 100 people. On January 15, 2023, a Yeti Airlines twin-engine aircraft crashed as it was approaching Pokhara International Airport, killing all 72 people on board. The crash was among the worst in Nepal’s aviation history.
A part of the problem is Nepal’s challenging physical terrain — the mountainous country is home to eight of the world’s 14 tallest mountains — and unpredictable weather. However, aging and poorly maintained aircraft and airport systems as well as poor oversight by aviation authorities have contributed in a big way to the abysmal safety record of Nepali airlines.
The EU ban on Nepali airlines has impacted the mobility of Nepali nationals as well as foreign tourists, migrant workers, students, and non-resident Nepalis to and from EU member countries. It has adversely affected Nepal’s tourism industry too. According to Khem Raj Lakai, chairperson of the Nepal chapter of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the EU ban is “hindering tourism growth and Nepal’s aspirations for high-end tourism.”
Nepal has inked Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) with 42 countries from around the world, including EU countries like Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Nepal’s BASA list also includes Britain as a major non-EU European country. The EU ban has hampered Nepal’s direct air connectivity to all of these destination countries, crippling Nepal’s global mobility
The ban has remained in place even during times of crisis, putting millions of passengers flying into and out of Nepal in difficulty. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, aircraft of the state-owned Nepal Airlines ferried nationals from Japan, Australia, and New Zealand back to their countries. But this wasn’t possible for EU destinations. EU citizens in Nepal had to charter non-Nepali aircraft, mainly Qatar Airways, to fly home. The EU ban also has a visible impact on long-haul North American flights, which need to stopover in European airports for refueling.
Interestingly, despite the ban on Nepali aircraft in EU skies, EU diplomats and tourists use Nepali aircraft for their Nepal tours.
Two years ago, Nona Deprez, the then-EU ambassador in Kathmandu, said that the “aviation system, not the Nepali aircraft, is unsafe” as evident from the series of air accidents and concerns raised by the ICAO. She said the EU was “concerned” for the “safety of EU and Nepali citizens.”
For over 15 years, global aviation watchdogs have called on the Nepali government to split the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) into two separate entities — a service provider and a regulator — to improve aviation safety. At present, CAAN does both.
However, successive governments have failed to pass legislation to implement this reform. Yogesh Bhattarai, former minister of culture, tourism, and civil aviation, told The Diplomat that he had tabled “a bill in parliament for separate regulatory and service-providing bodies in Nepal’s civil aviation” in December 2020. However, that didn’t go far “owing to the volatile political situation and resistance from the bureaucracy at that time.”
In February, a bill to split CAAN has been tabled in Nepal’s House of Representatives again.
Sunita Baral, member of the International Relations and Tourism Committee in the House of Representatives, told The Diplomat that “as urged by EU and Nepal’s aviation experts, the parliamentary committee will discuss measures for better regulation and operation of Nepal civil aviation sector.” She is optimistic that the bill will be passed this time.
That CAAN both acts as a service provider and a regulator is not the real reason why the EU ban on Nepal remains in place, CAAN insiders say.
“EU countries like France and Austria too have a single body providing services and acting as a regulator,” a CAAN official who asked not to be named pointed out to The Diplomat. Besides, “Nepal has already been removed from the ICAO blacklist after significant improvements were made to address its safety concerns,” he said. Yet the EU has not lifted the ban on Nepal.
The CAAN official was of the view that the continued EU ban on Nepali airlines might have something to do with Nepal’s purchase of Chinese aircraft, which has impacted Europe’s near monopoly in the business.
Europe dominates Nepal’s aviation sector. “Over 90 percent of Nepal’s aircraft are of European origin. Our surveillance system is 50 percent European and 50 percent Japanese. From certification to training and navigation, everything in the aviation sector conforms to European standards,” the CAAN official said, adding that “even pilots with licenses issued from the U.S. Federation of Aviation Administration are not eligible to fly in Nepal and have to go through European Aviation Safety Agency procedures.”
“If there are safety concerns in Nepal’s aviation industry, it is not just the failure of Nepal,” he said, pointing out that it is also “the failure of the entire European system.”
CAAN has questioned the issue of the safety of European helicopters in Nepal’s tough terrain, calling for a possible ban on their purchase by Nepal. However, Nepal’s aviation ministry has shot this down.
