Nepal Airlines

Is Nepal Airlines safe?

On its international jets, the record is clean; on its tiny mountain operation, it is not, and the oversight behind both is weak. Nepal Airlines, the state-owned flag carrier, flies two Airbus A320s and two A330s from Kathmandu to India, the Gulf, Malaysia and Japan, and none of them has had an accident. Its Twin Otters, which serve short strips in the hills, have had two serious accidents since 2013, one of them fatal. Every Nepali airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and Nepal Airlines has no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit. We score it 48, above Yeti Airlines and below Buddha Air.

The Twin Otter crashes

On 16 February 2014, flight RA183, a 1971-built Twin Otter, left Pokhara for Jumla in western Nepal with 18 people on board. The direct track was blocked by weather, so the crew went south, climbing and descending around cloud. Unable to get through, the captain decided to divert to Bhairahawa and descended while turning right, without allowing for the terrain. The voice recorder showed the co-pilot had warned him not to descend or turn. The aircraft hit a ridge at about 7,200 feet and nobody survived.

Nine months earlier, on 16 May 2013, another Twin Otter was written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary at Jomsom. The captain chose the runway with a tailwind above the airline's own five-knot limit, against the controller's advice, touched down late, ran onto the grass and then tried to go around without telling his co-pilot. The aircraft never reached flying speed and ran off the end of the runway; three people were seriously hurt. Both reports describe a captain overruling procedures and the person next to him. That is a training and culture problem, not an aircraft problem.

The airline's previous fatal crash, a Twin Otter that hit a hill in far-western Nepal in July 2000 with 25 on board, is outside our 20-year window.

The jets and the reporting problem

Most passengers fly the Airbuses. The two A320s arrived new in 2015 and the two A330-200s, also new, in 2018, so this is a young, modern fleet by regional standards. The concern is what happens when something goes wrong.

In 2021 The Himalayan Times reported that an A330 kept flying for more than a month after a heavy landing that the crew did not report, until the airline's flight-data contractor spotted it; the aircraft was then grounded for over three months. Citing unnamed sources, the paper also reported that on 25 April 2021 the crew of flight RA 2052 from Delhi lost situational awareness on the approach to Kathmandu and had to go around, an event that also came to light a month later. In March 2026 the same newspaper reported that China's regulator, the CAAC, had twice asked the airline for a report on an alleged ground event involving a Nepal Airlines flight at Guangzhou on 6 February, and that the airline had missed the one-week deadline. Unnamed sources quoted in that report said the same captain had earlier been involved in an altitude deviation in Hong Kong; we could not confirm that.

Late or missing reports matter because a weak regulator relies on the airline to tell it what went wrong. After a near-collision near Kathmandu between a Nepal Airlines Airbus and an Air India jet in March 2023, CAAN suspended the air traffic controllers on duty (Al Jazeera); we do not count it against the airline.

A state airline with a shrinking hill network

Nepal Airlines still owns two Chinese MA60s and three Y12s, but they are in storage and the airline has been trying to lease or sell them, according to ch-aviation. Of its two Twin Otters, one reached its engine-cycle limit in December 2024 and the other had been stored since June 2024 with engine problems; one was back in service in March 2025, so some remote routes had flights again. For residents of far-western districts, those flights are a lifeline, but there is very little aircraft behind them.

Why the regulator weighs so heavily

The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal both regulates airlines and runs the country's airports, a conflict ICAO has raised in its audits since 2009. ICAO's April 2022 audit gave Nepal 70.1% effective implementationICAO USOAPICAO's audit of how well each country's aviation regulator oversees safety. The result is an "effective implementation" percentage.More in the glossary, but only 45% for the organisation of its civil aviation authority. On 2 October 2026 the government registered two bills in parliament to split CAAN into a regulator and an airport and air-navigation company. Earlier versions lapsed when parliament was dissolved, so we will believe the change when it happens. Until then, the EU ban on all Nepali airlines, in place since 2013, stays the main oversight signal. Nepal Airlines is not an IATA member, so it has no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit either.

How to fly Nepal Airlines

• On international routes, the A320 and A330 are modern jets and their record is clean. The main risk is the approach into Kathmandu itself, so expect holds and diversions in poor weather.
• On domestic Twin Otter routes, fly in the morning and allow spare days. Schedules depend on one aircraft and on cloud over the hills.
• For mountain strips, compare options. Tara Air, Summit Air and others fly similar aircraft to the same places, but no airline in Nepal has a strong record on these routes.

How we scored it

The fleet (66) is the strongest factor, thanks to the new Airbus jets. The accident record (60) sits at the floor of our band for one fatal accident in 15 years: the 2014 crash and the 2013 write-offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary on a very small Twin Otter operation. Oversight (25) reflects the EU ban and the lack of IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary, the same score we give every Nepali airline. Serious incidents (40) reflect the late or missing reports of 2021 and 2026, and the environment (35) Kathmandu's valley approach and the hill strips.