| Username |
Post |
| Dukhi Nepali |
Posted
on 01-May-02 09:38 AM
So guys the price of going to Nepal is certainely going to rise:
Singapore Airlines suspends flights to Kathmandu
KOL Report
KATHMANDU, May 1 – Singapore Airlines (SIA) on Wednesday has announced that it is suspending its trice weekly flights to Kathmandu from May 31.
According to a press statement issued by SIA to Kantipur Online, SIA reasons its flights suspension as being "an ongoing review of the route network and as part of the effort to fine-tune capacity requirements and contain costs." The brief SIA statement signed by its General Manager in Nepal, Lawrence View, also terms the present operating environment as being "uncertain."
The move is further going to hit the tourist arrivals in the country that is reaching rock bottom, especially after the Indian Airlines hijacking flowed by the Royal Massacre and now the bloody Maoist insurgency. (sjs)
Dukhi Nepali
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| SAD |
Posted
on 01-May-02 11:55 AM
NOoooo....
By the way what will happen to people visiting US from Nepal or Nepal from US who have round trip ticket and travel date is latter than May 31st. Do you think SIA will arrange anohter airlines or give money back??? I guess we need to contact SIA office...
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| Parakhi |
Posted
on 01-May-02 03:02 PM
Sad, Full sympathy to you. Hope you will get either refund or rerouting of your ticket. But the problem here is too much than a personal problem. Think for the tourism industry that depends on smooth air transport. SIA's withdrawal of the route will definetly convey a negative message to the many enthusiastic tourists who will think many times before buying a holiday package in Nepal.
Parakhi
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| nepal |
Posted
on 01-May-02 06:45 PM
hi folks,
Now, Nepal has to sell its land to the neighbor countries to finance its military and run the government as well. I would suggest to sell its part, Biratnagar to India, and all the himalay range to China. We well have a lot of money and we can be so so happy.
Note: it is satirical only, I am so sad of hearing the condition of Nepal. There is only way to maintain this type of situation applying devaluation its currency.
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| Modernite |
Posted
on 02-May-02 11:17 AM
How long do you think devaluation will help Nepal.... usually countries devaluate to boost export.. as for Nepal tourism is already screwd-up and export rock-bottom.. so whats the use.
Either way Scerw with everything going on there, Maoist enjoy.. or kill girija and other responsible for current situation.
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| Parakhi |
Posted
on 02-May-02 03:57 PM
Devaluation is not useful here. Countries do export (X) and import (M) goods. When they do so, they are either net importer (X - M < 0), net exporter (X - M > 0) or balanced (X - M = 0). If a country is net importer, it runs current account deficit as more money goes out than coming in. If currency is devaluated, imports will be more expensive for country folks as they will have to pay more dollars for the same amount of imports. Thus people will import less. Whereas, exports will be cheaper for foreign buyers as they have to pay less dollars to buy the same amount of goods and services. Thus decreasing imports and increasing export helps to narrow the current account deficit. That's the objective of devaluation. However, we need to be very careful about the elasticity of import and export demands. If import (and inelastic export) is inelastic, the country will end of paying more dollars to import the goods (and less dollars by export) and further aggravate the situation. That's the deal about currency devaluation.
So do we have the situation where businesses are run fairly? Can we produce more if there is more demand due to devaluation? I think no. In this situation devaluation will result in a further deficit in current account as we will have less export earning (and more import expenses) and more amount to pay as interest for the loan we have been taking for the last five decades. After all, it is not a normal situation where any fiscal or monetary policy works right now. Only the policy of terror and counter terror is working there. Otherwise we are having devaluation almost every fortnight.
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| mugget |
Posted
on 02-May-02 05:21 PM
I agree. Now that the world's best airline isn't wasting its time with Nepal, that sends a very clear message. Another charter Dutch airline also recently stopped flights from Amsterdam, and Royal Nepal no longer flies from Europe. For many Americans like myself, we hesitate to fly Emirates or Gulf Air (Arab connections) since 9-11, and flying into Delhi is so unappealing.I was willing to risk planning a trip for fall of this year, but no more now that Singapore has pulled out. It is a sad day for tourism in Nepal.
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| arnico |
Posted
on 06-May-02 12:01 AM
Short term, sure it is an inconvenience to lose that route... hey, I almost booked myself a ticket on SQ to Nepal this summer... but from a wider perspective, I really don't think we should worry too much about it. Airlines add and drop routes quite frequently depending on demand. When the economic crisis hit South Korea in 1997-98 a lot of Asian and European airlines stopped flying there, same with Indonesia. Most of the airlines are back to flying to South Korea since quite a while. Immediately after September 11, nonstop flights between New York and Tokyo dropped from something like 9 a day to 2-3 a day. Now the number is creeping up again.
As soon as Singapore Airlines finds itself able to make money on Kathmandu routes, it will start flying again. I am sure. Even if war were to destroy every city in Nepal, our biggest tourist attraction, the Himalaya, would still be left standing, and would still draw visitors as soon as peace returns... as long as we become more vigilant about preventing our big neighbors from polluting the air blowing into Nepal so much that visibility drops to the point where we can't see the mountains anymore... (more on this topic some other day).
Meanwhile, for those people who insist on traveling via Singapore in the near future: remember that both Singapore Airlines and Thai are members of the same Star Alliance. SQ tickets to Kathmandu will probably be routed SIN-BKK-KTM with TG aircraft on the BKK-KTM sector. You know, when Lufthansa stopped the Frankfurt-Kathmandu flights, they did not actually completely drop Kathmandu out of their schedule: they gave their twice a week landing slots for Kathmandu to Thai, and started code-sharing on the Bangkok-Kathmandu flight, which Thai was able to increase from five to seven times a week as a result.
(What had prevented Thai from increasing flights earlier was the moronic agreement with the Nepali government whereby Thai could not fly more passengers per week than a certain number above what RNAC was carrying, and what limited RNAC's capacity was its lack of aircraft.)
Meanwhile, there is another factor that may be motivating Singapore Airlines' drop in flights to Kathmandu. The airline is looking to get rid of its aging fleet of ~180 seat Airbus A310 aircraft that it uses on the Kathmandu flights, and replace them with much larger Boeing 777's. Without the Maoist crisis they would have no problem fill B777s on the SIN-KTM flights... but I imagine that in recent months they probably were flying A310s that were almost empty.
Thai Airways has more flexibility with switching aircraft on the Kathmandu flights. In recent years the pattern has been to use 260 seat Airbus A300s during the monsoon low tourist season, and use 350 seat Boeing 777s during October through April. In October they were using B777s... in November the Maoists started their major attacks... by January when I was flying BKK-KTM, they were back to using the A300, with only 20 seats occupied (though my return KTM-BKK flight was full, mostly with Nepali workers heading to Malaysia).
Anyway, enough rambling... look at airline route networks as indicators for the health of economies, with timelags due to various regulations... right now the Nepali economy is suffering... and the withdrawl of the flights does not show much confidence by the airlines... (which, by the way RNAC did not show either when it returned leased aircraft and cancelled Europe flights a few months ago) ... but it is something that shifts and changes with the situation. Within 6 motnhs or less after the establishment of permanent peace the flights will be back...
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