Kathmandu: Nepal’s leading domestic carrier, Buddha Air, is earning more money even as the number of passengers it flies has declined, according to data from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal.
The airline still dominates the market, holding about 56 percent of Nepal’s total domestic passenger traffic and roughly 58 percent on trunk routes linking major urban airports, far ahead of its competitors.
Yet over the past year, its passenger volume fell by 85,473 travelers which is a drop of 3.22 percent in 2025 compared with 2024, even though it remains the country’s largest airline by passengers carried.
Despite flying fewer people, estimated revenue rose from Rs 13.22 billion in 2024, when it served 2.648 million passengers, to Rs 14.29 billion in 2025 with 2.563 million passengers.
In just the first six months of 2025, the airline had already generated Rs 7.15 billion. The longer trend shows steady financial growth: revenue stood at Rs 12.16 billion in 2023 with 2.577 million passengers, and the company has increased business by about 41 percent over the past four years, compared with Rs 6.08 billion rupees in 2018 before the pandemic.
After COVID-19 slashed revenue to just Rs 3.33 billion in 2021, Buddha Air quickly recovered, carrying 2.387 million passengers and earning Rs 10 billion in 2022.
The airline operates the largest fleet in Nepal’s domestic market, with 18 aircraft serving major routes, and says its strategy of expanding ATR-72 operations, maintaining schedule reliability, and prioritizing passenger service has helped sustain income even when traveller numbers fluctuate.
Senior Market Manager Rupesh Joshi said the company has not compromised on service standards and is analyzing the revenue–passenger trend in detail.
Founded 29 years ago by Birendra Bahadur Basnet with a single 19-seat Beechcraft 1900D, Buddha Air rapidly became a market leader and now also runs limited international services from Kathmandu to Varanasi and Kolkata in India, flying 16,599 passengers on those routes last year across 372 flights.
The airline claims it served 2.7 million passengers overall when including regional sectors such as Bhairahawa–Pokhara and Biratnagar–Pokhara, giving it about a 60 percent share of Nepal’s domestic market. It is also the country’s highest tax-paying domestic airline, contributing 1.07 billion rupees in taxes in 2024, and employs around 1,600 people.
Comment Here