Editorial
Biman schedules badly upset
Passenger hardships know no bounds
Although the seven-hour strike on Tuesday has been brought to an end through the intervention of civil aviation minister, chain effects are proving to be disruptive even now. The sudden strike forced cancellation of 18 flights. Outbound 4000 passengers were stranded at cities and airports for a whole day. Passengers of four flights stayed put in their craft waiting to disembark for a few hours. Only because the gangway was not available.
As of yesterday, Biman was still grappling with five delayed flights and a canceled one, and there is no knowing when the backlogs will be cleared. The cargo handling for arriving and departing passengers has been terribly messed up. Till the time of writing, many morning passengers were still waiting to get their baggages and begin their ride out into the city.
The responsibility rests in a large part with the Biman authorities. For the minister himself admitted that discussion could have taken place a day before to head off the crisis. A chaotic situation like this at the premier international airport of the country is simply unacceptable.
The CBA leaders for their part failed to allow sufficient time to the authorities before taking the extreme step.
There were, however, forebodings of a stalemate when on Sunday at the call of Biman Sramik League which is supportive of the ruling party, workers laid siege for 11 hours on the management board directors' offices. The following day, they staged a sit-in for long hours at the Biman head office. If the assurance of the minister was enough to call off the strike why then didn't the CBA leaders approach the minister earlier on?
We are looking forward to both sides keeping the channels of communication open to avert any recurrence of such a crisis. We believe though, there needs to be a consensus on which of their demands are legitimate and which are not. That's the first exercise the employer and employees need to undertake to smoothen the working of the premier airport.
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