Kathmandu, Dec. 6 -- Nepal Airlines has planned to put all four of its Chinese-made planes back in the air by February, but that is unlikely to happen for lack of spare parts. Previously, it had been forced to ground them because there were no pilots to fly them. Now that there are pilots, there are no parts.

The national flag carrier has four 17-seater Y12e planes in its fleet. Three are sitting in the hangar while one flies twice daily on the Dang sector, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Two weeks ago, presenting its first quadrimester report of this fiscal year at the Tourism Ministry, Nepal Airlines had promised to bring one plane into operation by November and two more by February next year.

As the spare parts prob...