It's Biman again!
I agree with Biman's Managing Director because some people say that statistics is the trade of 'tricks' or 'treats' depending on the subject and on the audience looking at it. Regarding growth of air travel market in Bangladesh, the MD should have given some idea about the market growth, both for the local as well as overseas flights from Dhaka. Biman is the direct descendent of the erstwhile PIA, which was in those (East Pakistan) days, called “Perhaps. It Arrives”! It was surprising that the MD did not provide any breakdown data on market growth, to that extent his remarks were subjective!
The onslaught on Biman's image has definitely some basis behind it, and it also reflects upon the poor image building efforts of Biman. Mere spending on advertisement is not the way to build image. Is this not related to management failure? I am sure he is aware that critics cynically call it “Bangladesh Bay-iman (Faithless Biman), which is mostly related to its punctuality! Expats often say that if you are not concerned about missing flight connections, try Biman!
Let me now recall an incident that took place many years back. The captain of the Biman DC-10, on my flight to London, was my school friend. Hand baggage search was then a few weeks into practice. The flight was scheduled to take-off at around 10 pm but it took off well after midnight.
The reason for this, as I learnt from my friend was that as caption of the aircraft on that flight, he refused to let his hand baggage to be searched. He told them that if he wanted to commit suicide he did not need a bomb in his hand baggage to do it! The bag only had important flight manuals and necessary technical documents. Unfortunately this matter took over two hour for the then MD of Biman to understand. Finally, he and the co-pilot boarded the aircraft without their hand baggage being searched! So much for Biman's management. May be now it might have improved, but given any option, I prefer to avoid Biman when flying.
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