Indian and Nepal held Bilateral Civil Aviation Consultations after a gap of twelve years on September 8-9, 2009 at New Delhi. The two sides were led by Mr. Madhavan Nambiar, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and Mr. Nagendra Ghimire, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Government of Nepal. The two sides initiated a revised Air Services Agreement(ASA) based on ICAO template and signed an MoU to immediately bring into effect the provisions of the revised ASA on a provisional basis pending formal approval of the agreement by the respective governments. A technical agreement was also signed between Airport Authority of India and Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal. The revised ASA significantly liberalises the air services between the two countries increasing the current seat capacity of 6000 per week in each direction to 30,000 seats per week for six metro stations in India. Air services have been permitted to and from another 21 cities in India to and from Nepal without any restriction on the seat capacity. The revised ASA has also allowed unlimited fifth freedom rights for intermediate and beyond points within SAARC region and upto 7 flights per week in each direction for three points beyond SAARC region. The designated airlines of each party shall be entitled to operate any number of all cargo services between each others territory with any type of aircraft with full 3rd, 4th, and 5th freedom traffic rights. Such all cargo services may also be operated under cooperative marketing arrangements such as code sharing blocked space etc.

A press release issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India on the Consultations can be viewed at http://www.pib.nic.in/release/rel_print_page.asp