Buddha to open new company 'Yashodhara Air' to serve remote areas

Kathmandu, December 29

Buddha Air plans to expand air services to remote areas. For this, Buddha Air is preparing to open a sister company with 100% investment.

Birendra Bahadur Basnet, managing director of the company, informed that it has been decided to name the new company 'Yashodhara Air.'

According to him, the company will start the flight within the next one year after completing the necessary preparations, including bringing a ship for the new company.

After that, Buddha Air's service will be extended to remote destinations. "We are moving forward on the basis of natural growth," he said.

He informed that the service for Yashodhara Air would start from 2022 after completing the preparations within a year. Yashodhara is the life partner of Lord Gautam Buddha.

He informed that it has been decided to keep Yashodhara as Buddha's sister company will not have another suitable name.

Buddha Air will initially bring in four ships on domestic flights. Basnet informed that a final decision is yet to be made on which twin-engine or other aircraft will be brought for this.

He informed that preparations have been started to finalize the ship within the next six months and then complete the remaining work of setting up the company. Buddha is planning to build the base airport of the new company Yashodhara outside the valley. There will be two base airports.

At present, Buddha Air is operating flights from a total of 13 ships only in accessible areas. Buddha now has two Beechcraft, three ATR 42s and eight ATR 72s.

According to Managing Director Basnet, the service will be based in Manthali of Ramechhap in the eastern region and Pokhara in the western region.

"We will fly two of the four ships to Ramechhap and two to Pokhara," he said. Flights will be operated from Pokhara to Jomsom, Rara, Simkot and other airports. According to Basnet, the aim is to expand the flight from Manthali Airport in Ramechhap to Suketar Airport in Lukla and Taplejung.

The company had earlier said that it would operate international flights from the Pokhara Regional International Airport under construction. However, in the changing circumstances, it was decided not to board the international flight immediately, said Basnet.

"We will now focus entirely on internal services," he said. "One of the steps is to expand the service to remote areas." He said that he will wait for some more time for this.

Today is exactly one hundred days (September 21 to December 29) when domestic flights were closed for a long time due to Covid-19. The company has informed that Buddha served only 375,000 passengers during this period.

According to Basnet, the service has been provided by trained staff by preparing a safety guideline against Kovid. The company currently operates more than four dozen flights daily. It currently flies to 15 destinations daily from Kathmandu and Pokhara.

Image Source: buddhaair.com