Biman issue
Many readers write in your daily expressing their concern about the ailing national career, Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The common feeling is that Biman should be turned into a profit-making airline. But how? One point that has never come up for discussion is that Biman has lost its goodwill in aviation market. In business if your goodwill and prestige is destroyed you stand nowhere. Biman's reputation in business deals with aircraft suppliers has eroded so badly that no one is willing to come forward and help. In the last decade or so, Biman has floated on several occasions tenders for strategic partners and aircraft lease/charter but the response has been very poor. This is ample proof that Biman has lost its creditability in the aviation industry. This is not the end. The story goes that on many occasions Biman even failed to pay on time handling charges at overseas airports and its flights were barred from taking off till the dues were cleared.
Recent changes in Biman and turning it into a public limited company is a good move no doubt, but as a company with debtors all around, how can it survive? The only way out I see is for the government to come forward with at least US Dollar 1 billion as its part of the share in Biman which can be used to lease and buy new aircrafts. The old aircrafts should be sold out to pay off all debtors.
Recently, there has been news that expatriate Bangladeshis remit around US Dollar 6 billion each year to our exchequer. Then why can't our government allocate US Dollar 1 billion to rejuvenate Biman? Or do we desire foreign airlines to come and take away millions of dollars as their sales proceeds from Bangladesh? We now have a dozen foreign airlines operating daily flights to and from Dhaka, out of which five are Middle Eastern airlines, all using wide-bodied aircrafts. Emirates has two flights daily from
Dhaka to Dubai. Where does Biman stand?
Coming back to the point of establishing goodwill and creditability. Look at the private airlines operating in India.
These private Indian airlines are barely 15 year old and on an average they own 35 (thirty five) aircrafts each. Boeing and Airbus Company are wooing them to buy more aircrafts and bagged orders for dozens of new aircrafts. As for Biman, I think the management is living in a dreamland.
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