Your puff piece on Royal Nepal Airlines ('Royal Nepal Airlines battles battered image', # 175) does nothing to mitigate the suffering of thousands of passengers who have been inconvenienced and treated like dirt by Nepal's flag carrier. Nor does it force the airline to take responsibility for its dismal performance. The airline's managing director you interviewed in the same issue is right when he says the airline reflects the state of the country. Look at the way he is passing the buck on past mismanagement and past corruption, blaming everyone but himself. He sure is talking like a Nepali politician.

JN Singh,
New Delhi

. Mohan Khanal is right ('The airline develops if the country develops', #175) when he says that it is political interference by corrupt politicians in the past 12 years that has ruined his airline. I personally have watched helplessly as hundreds of people were forced into the airline's staff roll every time there was a new tourism minister. The politicos never allowed the airline to buy the kind of equipment it required, but arm-twisted them to negotiate exorbitant lease rates on unsuitable aircraft and pocket vast sums in kickbacks. 'Lauda' is now synonymous with corruption because of this. The politicians not only ruined the airline, but they also ruined the country. And they are back on the streets burning tyres because they want to get back to plundering the country.

Name withheld on request
Kathmandu