Kathmandu. Novo Air, a Bangladeshi airline that sold its aircraft to Yeti Airlines, Nepal’s private sector carrier, has officially suspended all its flights from Friday.
Confirming this on Friday night, a NovoAir official said: “From today, NovoAir’s flight operations have been temporarily suspended. “We are trying to sell our aircraft,” he said on condition of anonymity. A foreign side is coming up for inspection. Therefore, flight operations have been suspended for the time being. ”
The airline announced the sale of the aircraft, which is gradually falling into a financial crisis due to the decrease in the number of passengers. After the aircraft was put on sale, the company’s owner lied that it was going to operate regional international flights through Airbus to dispel rumors that the company was going to close down. In 2022, he gave interviews to local media about buying Airbus to fly internationally, but the airline was finally on the verge of closure.
According to Bangladeshi air service entrepreneurs, the number of air passengers in the domestic market is shrinking after the construction of a huge bridge across the Padma River has shortened the duration of domestic travel. Apart from this, the recent political crisis and the negative impact on tourist arrivals due to violent movements have also added more challenges to the air service company.
Rumors of the closure of NovoAir had been circulating for a long time, as the airline was going through a financial crisis for a long time. From April 19, the airline stopped booking new tickets.
NovoAir’s closure of its business has been going on for almost two years. At the end of January 2024, NovoAir sold two ATR 72-500 aircraft to Yeti Airlines. Both the aircraft, purchased by Yeti Airlines, were delivered on February 1, 2024. After the sale of these two planes, Novo Airlines now has five aircraft left. However, since all these aircraft are more than 15 years old, Yeti Airlines cannot buy and fly in Nepali airspace due to the existing provisions related to Air Service in Nepal.
On January 9, 2013, NovoAir started operating flights on the Dhaka-Chattogram route. Over a 12-year period, it served more than 7.5 million passengers through more than 100,000 flights.
According to fortnightly travel magazine The Bangladesh Monitor, NovoAir was awarded the “Best Domestic Air Service” in 2014 and 2019 and the “Best On-Time Performance Airline” in 2022 and 2023.
Recently, NovoAir operated daily flights from Dhaka to Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Sylhet, Jashore, Syedpur and Rajshahi’s domestic routes.
NovoAir started international flights on the Dhaka-Kolkata route in December 2016. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, flights on this route were briefly suspended. Operations later resumed, but on September 16, 2024, the airline again suspended flights on this route.
