Time to streamline Biman
Chaotic flight schedules of Biman Bangladesh Airlines which have left hundreds of passengers stranded at Hazrat Shajalal International Airport for three days, while many of the passengers, especially the ones going to Malaysia and different West Asian countries are at risk of losing jobs as duration of their visas expire soon, are indeed a grave concern. As New Age reported on Wednesday quoting Biman officials, the problem arose mainly as its board of directors decided on September 4 to ‘limit their regular flights to three routes and reduce the frequency of flights on five other routes after failing to lease an aircraft to operate extra flights for Hajj pilgrims.’ Meanwhile, on September 12, a leased carrier with the capacity to carry 505 passengers left the national airline’s fleet without notice eight days before the lease was set to expire. Moreover, with a bird hitting it on Sunday, another aircraft tied to Biman was grounded for 15 hours. All this invariably worsened the situation.
It is very unfortunate that even after 40 years in operation, the national flag carrier is heavily dependent on leased aircraft. Besides, as a setback in its flight schedules has become almost a regular phenomenon during Hajj time in recent years, the failure of the Biman management to manage some more aircraft to tackle the extra load of Hajj pilgrims this year is unacceptable altogether. It may be worth noting that millions of Bangladeshis work in Malaysia and West Asian countries — particularly Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain — whose contributions to economy as well as society are literally immense. Additionally, hundreds more travel to those countries every month for various purposes including trade, tourism and religious. More importantly, majority of these travellers prefer Biman for understandable reasons. Overall, one could be forgiven to comment that it is the Biman management seeking to gloss over the issue which has, in effect, let the crisis aggravate to such a pass.
It is important to note that with huge potential to become a profitable venture, Biman has incurred huge losses for long, to say the least, because of lack of proper management. On the other hand, in a bid to rid the airlines of corruption and irregularities rampant in the organisation once solely governed by the government, Biman was turned into a public limited company some years ago. Needless to say, regrettably though, all this conspicuously dampened the situation further. It is, indeed, high time that the government overhauled the whole management of Biman and took effective measures to end its being a liability to the state exchequer. In the meantime, of course, it needs to take immediate steps to address the woes of stranded passengers mentioned earlier.
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