The European Commission, in Dec 2013, imposed a ban on Nepali airlines from flying into the EU after the September 2012 crash of Sita Air Flight 601 at the Manohara River bank in Kathmandu.
The other reason behind Nepal continuing to be on the blacklist, is the Nepal government’s failure to endorse two pending aviation bills which would split the country’s aviation entity into two separate bodies. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Bill and Air Service Authority of Nepal Bill envisage two separate bodies—one as a service provider and the other as a regulator. Had Nepal expedited the endorsement of these two bills, it would have made Nepal’s case stronger. The EU has long been urging Nepal to split CAAN into regulation and operational bodies as the main condition to remove Nepali airlines from the list. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) of the EU carried out a safety audit of Nepali airline companies last year. Although the EU agency stood positive in the beginning, it was reportedly unsatisfied with the government’s slow process of unbundling the CAAN. CAAN Spokesperson Jagannath Niraula said that he expects Nepal to be removed from the blacklist from the EU’s review meeting in November. “As we understand, due to the air accident in Pokhara, the EU immediately postponed the audit report that was to be published in February. However, even after that, we are in constant communication with the EU,” said Niraula. “There may be some technical errors in the Pokhara incident. The entire airspace cannot be evaluated based on that,” he further said. According to Niraula, the EU has said that it will soon publish the on-site audit report of Nepal. “After that report comes, it is believed that Nepal will be removed from the EU’s blacklist from the review meeting in November,” he said. After the Jan 15 Pokhara crash, the EU, which was planning to visit Nepal to conduct an ‘on-site assessment’ of Nepal’s aviation security, postponed the visit.
