Airlines of Nepal: Full Directory of Every CAAN-Certified Operator

Every commercial airline in Nepal must hold an Air Operator Certificate (AOC) issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the state body created on 31 December 1998 (Poush 2055 BS) under the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal Act 2053 (1996). CAAN is unusual by international standards because it performs two roles at once: it is the safety regulator that certifies and audits airlines, and it is also the service provider that owns and operates the country's airports and air navigation services. Bills to split these two functions into separate bodies have been under discussion in the Federal Parliament for years, and the delay is one of the main reasons cited by the European Union for keeping Nepali carriers on its Air Safety List.

AOC holders fall into two broad groups. Fixed-wing operators fly scheduled passenger services on trunk routes between cities in the Tarai and hill regions, and short-take-off-and-landing (STOL) services to remote mountain airstrips such as Lukla, Jomsom and Simikot. Helicopter operators, the second group, hold separate certificates for charter, sightseeing, cargo-sling and search-and-rescue work. As of 2026 the active roster comprises eight fixed-wing carriers and about a dozen helicopter companies, alongside Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal–China joint venture founded in 2014 (IATA: H9, ICAO: HIM) that holds a Nepali AOC but flies only international routes with Airbus A320-family jets.

The list is not static. Guna Airlines, a Jetstream 41 operator relaunched in 2021 from the former Simrik Airlines, has been grounded since 2023 over financial and compliance problems, and CAAN declined to reinstate its AOC in May 2024. Saurya Airlines lost its certificate after a fatal crash in July 2024 and only returned to the skies in February 2026. CAAN's own Air Transport directory remains the authoritative reference for the current list.

Nepal Airlines Corporation (IATA: RA, ICAO: RNA, callsign ROYAL NEPAL) is the national flag carrier and the country's oldest airline, founded on 1 July 1958 (2015 BS) as Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC). It dropped the royal prefix after the 2006 political change and remains fully owned by the Government of Nepal, with its main hub at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu and secondary domestic bases at Biratnagar, Nepalgunj and Pokhara.

The fleet is small for a flag carrier: as of 2025 it operates two wide-body Airbus A330-200s, two Airbus A320-200s and two de Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otters for remote domestic strips. Six Chinese-built aircraft (Xian MA60s and Harbin Y-12s) acquired in the 2010s proved unsuited to Nepali operating conditions and were withdrawn from service in July 2020; the corporation has been trying to sell them since. Internationally, Nepal Airlines serves around eleven destinations, including Delhi, Dubai, Doha, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

The airline carries a public-service mandate to serve unprofitable remote airfields, which, combined with heavy debt from its wide-body purchases, keeps it financially strained. The EU has repeatedly pointed to its governance — the regulator and the state carrier answer to the same ministry — as part of the conflict of interest blocking Nepal's removal from the Air Safety List.

Four private carriers dominate scheduled jet-and-turboprop flying between Nepal's larger airports. Buddha Air (IATA: U4, ICAO: BHA), founded in 1996 with its first flight on 11 October 1997, is by far the largest domestic airline by passengers carried. As of 2025 it operates an all-ATR fleet of 17 aircraft — fifteen ATR 72-500s and two ATR 42-300s — from hubs in Kathmandu and Pokhara to about 14 destinations, and it is the only Nepali carrier flying scheduled international routes to India (Varanasi and Kolkata). Yeti Airlines (IATA: YT, ICAO: NYT), certified on 17 August 1998, is the second-largest domestic carrier, flying seven 70-seat ATR 72-500s from Kathmandu to Bhadrapur, Bhairahawa, Biratnagar, Janakpur, Nepalgunj and Pokhara, plus popular Everest sightseeing 'mountain flights'.

Shree Airlines (IATA: N9, ICAO: SHA) took an unusual path: founded in 1999 as Nepal's largest helicopter operator with heavy-lift Mil Mi-17s, it entered fixed-wing service in 2017 and is now the second-largest domestic airline by fleet size. As of 2025 it flies two Bombardier CRJ200ERs and seven De Havilland Dash 8 Q400s to seven cities, including Dhangadhi and Surkhet in the far west, while still running Mi-17 and AS350 helicopter operations. Saurya Airlines (IATA: S1, ICAO: SAU), which began flying on 17 November 2014, operates Bombardier CRJ-200 jets on eastern trunk routes to Biratnagar and Bhadrapur.

Saurya's recent history shows how quickly the directory can change. On 24 July 2024 one of its CRJ-200s crashed on take-off from Kathmandu on a ferry flight to Pokhara, killing 18 of the 19 people on board. CAAN grounded the airline the next day and pulled its certificate; after an 18-month suspension and a fresh safety audit, Saurya resumed commercial flights in February 2026 (Falgun 2082 BS).

A second tier of fixed-wing carriers keeps Nepal's remote districts connected using small aircraft certified for short-take-off-and-landing airstrips, many of them unpaved and perched above 2,500 metres. Tara Air (IATA: TB), established in 2009 as the STOL subsidiary of Yeti Airlines, flies three DHC-6 Twin Otters (one -300 and two -400 series) from Kathmandu, Nepalgunj and Pokhara to strips such as Lukla, Jomsom, Dolpa, Jumla, Rara and Simikot. For communities in Karnali and the trans-Himalayan valleys these 18-seat flights are often the only practical alternative to days of walking or dangerous road journeys.

Sita Air (IATA: ST), established in October 2000 with operations from 6 February 2003, operates four 19-seat Dornier 228s from Kathmandu, Pokhara and Nepalgunj, and is a principal carrier on the Lukla run that feeds the Everest Base Camp trek. Summit Air, founded in February 2011 as Goma Air and rebranded on 13 March 2017, flies four Czech-built Let L-410 UVP-E20 turboprops on similar mountain routes. During peak trekking seasons most Lukla flights by all three carriers operate from Manthali Airport in Ramechhap rather than Kathmandu, to ease congestion at TIA.

STOL flying is the most demanding — and statistically the most dangerous — segment of Nepali aviation. Tara Air Flight 197, a Twin Otter bound for Jomsom, crashed in Mustang on 29 May 2022, killing all 22 aboard; Sita Air lost 19 people in a 2012 crash after take-off from Kathmandu; and Summit Air has suffered two fatal accidents at Lukla (2017 and 2019). These losses underpin the safety concerns that keep Nepal on the EU list and CAAN's tightened weather and crew-experience rules for mountain strips.

Around a dozen CAAN-certified helicopter companies operate a combined fleet of more than 40 machines, flying an estimated 75,000–100,000 passengers a year on charters, Everest and Annapurna sightseeing tours, high-altitude rescues, medical evacuations and cargo-sling work. The workhorse of the industry is the Airbus (Eurocopter) AS350 B3e / H125, famed for its high-altitude performance, supplemented by Bell 407s, Bell 505s and Shree's heavy-lift Mil Mi-17s.

The five best-known operators each have distinct specialities. Simrik Air (est. 2001, hub Kathmandu with a Pokhara base) runs about six helicopters — AS350 B3es plus Bell 407GXP and Bell 505 types — and built its reputation on high-altitude rescue work, including missions around Everest Base Camp. Air Dynasty Heli Services (est. 1993 by Ang Tshering Sherpa) is one of the oldest operators, flying AS350-family machines from Kathmandu, Pokhara and Lukla; its February 2019 crash in Taplejung killed all seven aboard, including then tourism minister Rabindra Adhikari. Manang Air (est. 1997) operates AS350 B3es on expedition and charter work and is Nepal's only approved helicopter training organisation; its July 2023 crash in Solukhumbu killed five Mexican tourists and the pilot.

Altitude Air (est. 2016, first flight September 2016) was the first Nepali company to buy brand-new commercial helicopters, and its AS350 B3es have performed recoveries at extreme altitude, including the retrieval of five climbers' bodies from around 7,000 metres in 2024. Kailash Helicopter Services, licensed in 2017 and commercially operating since 24 March 2018, flies AS350 B2/B3e machines on rescue, charter and pilgrimage flights. The remaining certified operators include Fishtail Air (est. 1997), Heli Everest (est. 2016), Prabhu Helicopters, Mountain Helicopters and Mustang Helicopters, alongside Shree Airlines' helicopter division.

Since 5 December 2013 (Mangsir 2070 BS), every air carrier certified in Nepal has been included in the European Union Air Safety List, which bans them from operating into, out of or within EU airspace. The ban is blanket: it applies to CAAN's certification system as a whole rather than to any individual airline's record, so even carriers with clean histories such as Buddha Air are covered. The European Commission reviews the list roughly twice a year, and in every update through the most recent revision of 3 June 2025 Nepal has remained listed.

The practical effect on passengers inside Nepal is limited — no Nepali carrier currently flies to Europe — but the listing damages the industry in indirect ways: it blocks Nepal Airlines' long-haul ambitions, complicates aircraft leasing and insurance, and leads some European travel-insurance policies to restrict cover on Nepali domestic flights. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) removed its formal 'significant safety concern' over Nepal in 2017, and CAAN's audit scores have improved since, but the EU's core demand is structural: separating CAAN's regulatory arm from its service-provision and airline-ownership interests through legislation that parliament has yet to pass.

Nepal's accident record keeps the issue in the headlines. The Yeti Airlines ATR 72 crash on approach to Pokhara on 15 January 2023 killed all 72 aboard — the country's deadliest air disaster in three decades — and was followed by the Manang Air crash of July 2023 and the Saurya Airlines crash of July 2024. Investigators' findings in these cases, covering crew procedures, weight-and-balance control and oversight gaps, form the checklist CAAN must demonstrably close before EU delisting becomes realistic.

The list below summarises every active fixed-wing AOC holder for quick comparison. All are headquartered in Kathmandu with Tribhuvan International Airport as their primary hub; fleet figures are as reported in 2025–2026 and change as aircraft are added or retired. Helicopter operators generally have no IATA or ICAO designators and are identified by their AOC numbers and 9N-registered aircraft. For the legally current operator list, consult CAAN's Air Transport division, and build buffer days into mountain itineraries, since weather holds are routine.