The meeting of the Covid-19 Crisis Management Centre on Friday decided to continue repatriation charter flights, turning down the request of the Tourism Ministry to allow international scheduled passenger flights.

“The meeting decided to continue chartered flights but in limited numbers,” said Tourism Ministry Secretary Kedar Bahadur Adhikari. “We have decided to take another proposal seeking permission to allow international scheduled passenger flights.”

The meeting also did not allow domestic flights to resume as well, he said. The tourism ministry has been facing criticism for allowing repatriation charter flights as a handful of firms have been charging exorbitant fares for passengers.

Travel trade entrepreneurs have been saying that with more than two dozen chartered flights permitted daily, it would not make a difference if regular passenger flights were allowed to resume. “A handful of agencies are benefitting from the government’s chartered flights policy,” said a travel agent, who wished to remain anonymous. “We doubt there is something seriously wrong as chartered flights have become a business of billions of rupees now.”

The deadline for repatriation charter flights will end on July 12. Nearly 150 chartered flights have been operated in over a month, bringing around 22,000 Nepalis from different countries.