Improving revenues have seen Nepal Airlines (RA, Kathmandu) continue repayments on loans owed to the country's Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and the Citizen Investment Fund (CIF). The airline says it has repaid NPR830.96 million Nepalese rupees (USD6.3 million) in the 30 days before the end of the Nepalese financial year (July 15) and NPR2.94 billion (USD22.4 million) in the first nine months of that financial year.
Nepal Airlines confirmed the amounts in a July 17 press statement. The carrier had been under fire for not servicing some financial commitments to other state-owned entities. However, this week's statement said the airline's revenues had improved compared to previous years and that it had also resumed servicing some other debts. However, Nepal Airlines did not provide further details on those debts.
As previously reported in ch-aviation, the EPF and CIF loans date back to 2013 and were taken out to fund aircraft acquisitions. This publication has also reported that Nepal Airlines had earlier resumed repayments, although it had written to both state-own provident funds to request a waiver on interest and penalties as well as a longer repayment timeline.
Also on July 17, Nepal Airlines said it had finalised an "action plan" to buy three short take-off and landing turboprops to service domestic markets, which the airline says it will pay for using its internal financial reserves rather than taking on additional loans.
