Arke Fly operated by TUI Holland International of the Netherlands began its maiden flight to Nepal on 7 October, linking Dutch capital of Amsterdam to Kathmandu. With this flight, Arke Fly has become the only international airline linking Kathmandu directly with Europe.

The Boeing 737-800 aircraft of Arke Fly landed at The Tribhuvan International Airport at 2:30 pm with 180 passengers on board. The airline will fly once a week to in the sector.

High ranking officials of Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal and Nepal Tourism Board welcomed the passengers and crew members of the first flight. Officials hope the beginning of direct flight to Europe will help make Nepal Tourism Year 2011 a grand success.

On board the inaugural flights are 150 Dutch travel agents that are on a familiarization trip in Nepal. The scheduled flight of Arke Fly will begin from 11 October.

Earlier, Martin Air and Transavia, both from the Netherlands, used to fly in the route.

Source: TAAN e-news

Same category news before:

AMSTERDAM, June 22 - Despite the fall in the tourism industry all around the world, a Dutch airline, ARKE FLY, is all set to begin its direct flights from Amsterdam to Kathmandu.

The weekly flight would commense from on Oct. 17 2009, and the Officials say they will consideradding up the number of flights if more number of passengers choose to travel using ARKE FLY.
Travel time will come down to maximum 12 hours from 22 hours and flight costs will also go down  less. Airline officials say as quoted there will be a short refueling stopover in Manama, Bahrain.

There are no direct flight to Kathmandu from anywhere in Europe as per now. As many of the airlines cancelled their flight services to Nepal due to poor business.
Martin Air flew weekly chartered flights between Amsterdam and Kathmandu before, which was also some four years ago. The direct air service that began in 2001 was stopped on April 18, 2005 citing low bookings. Before Martin Air, Transavia, ( KLM), operated in the sector between 1998 to 2001.


Hude number of visitors from Netherlands arrive Nepal each year. Their love for Nepal and its people hasn't been any less as they have travelled longer distance with more cos and yet havent stopped them from visiting Nepal. Statistics has is ,that over 7,000 tourists from the Netherlands arrived in Nepal via air last year. The Netherlands vies with Italy for the third position from Europe in sending tourists to Nepal.

The direct flight is also likely to attract the visitors from Belgium and Germany , besides at the same time providing service to increasing number of Nepalese in the near by regions.