Biman and the proposed new airport

Just a few days back, the caretaker of our apartment building came back smiling after paying the telephone and WASA bills, and even returned me Tk 20 from his conveyance allowance. He told me that he paid both bills at Al Falah Bank. Previously, he used to take two days to pay the same two bills--one at Pubali Bank and the other at Janata Bank. I just picked up the telephone and thanked the BTTB revenue department for making the bill payment procedure much easier. In another instance, I wanted to dispatch my son's A level certificate to a university in Canada. All Edexel services are being looked after by the British Council in Dhaka. I went twice to British Council at Fuller Road, but unfortunately, I was misguided by the front office. I then decided to write an e mail to the British Council. It worked, and one Examining Officer wrote back to me by saying that the form can be downloaded and even can be paid by credit card. It saved me the hassle traveling to Fuller Road, which would mean a commute of more than an hour. Why am I bringing these two examples here? The other day, I was reading in the newspaper about the query of a person to the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) relating to the website of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA). Both Biman and CAAB do not have adequate services for providing online information and booking. Moreover, the number of flights operating out of HSIA has not increased in any great number in recent years. In other words, the actual growth in air traffic has been nominal. It means that there is no drive from both Biman and the airport authority to increase the number of flights and attract new airlines. If this is the condition, then we do not need another new airport. This airport is good enough for the next decade. But again, which are the new airlines that have come forward to fly to and from Bangladesh and why? The reason is simple. Every airline is carrying Bangladeshi expatriate workers. Look at Air Arabia airlines, which started recently, now operates one daily flight from Chittagong airport and one daily flight from Dhaka airport with full-load to Sharjah, UAE. But Biman has always said that there is no passenger load between Dhaka/Chittagong to Sharjah and return. We thought that there would an improvement in Biman after it was converted into a limited company. But we are observing that day by day it is sinking. The present picture of Biman is very disappointing. In the 1980s, we were proud of Biman, as it used to operate weekly 35 flights via Dubai, the second highest number of flights after Gulf Air. At that time, Emirates was not even born. As crew members of Biman, we jokingly used to tell the Dubai airport employees that they are miskins (beggars) and we are supporting them. The lack of quality service at HSIA is quite glaring. There are presently only six boarding bridges. Sometimes, there is a jam when 2-3 wide-bodied aircraft land at the same time. Inside the airport, passenger lounges, restaurants and toilets are not sufficient to meet the demand of the passengers, not to speak about their quality and standard. The look of the airport does not appeal to the passengers and visitors alike. The worst part is that when passengers get out of the airport, all sorts of people start to pull their luggage. Passengers often become the helpless victims. One might say that the airport runaway is also not utilised fully. One has to match the departure/arrival timing with the destination airport. Normally, all west-bound flights (and even some east-bound flights) are operated during the night so that the passengers reach their destination by early morning. Due to geographical location and outside ground temperature, most of the flights are being operated during the night at Dubai airport. Therefore, calculation of utilization is completely different in different airports. Looking at the passenger growth rate in the surrounding countries--Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, India and the Middle Eastern countries--the vision for a new airport is a move in the right direction. But we need to do a lot of homework. During the recent visit of the prime minister to Japan, some Japanese investors (specialised in building airports) met her and offered to support building of the new airport on the basis of build-operate-transfer (BOT). The Civil Aviation Authority earlier estimated that the proposed new airport would cost around Tk 500 billion (US$7.2 billion). If it is built on a BOT basis, then no government fund will be needed to bear the cost of construction of the proposed new airport. We are proposing that the new airport be made into a regional hub. A regional hub is an airport where connecting flights to many international destinations are available. That is, the national airlines (say Biman) will bring passengers from the neighboring countries in the morning or by mid-day and send them to Middle East, Europe or other destinations during the night. In that case, Biman must also strengthen its aircraft fleet. But we do not need a hub, our own expatriate workforce and a small number of tourists would be good enough to make this new airport a success. If we build a new airport with modem facilities and proper infrastructure and communication facilities and run it efficiently as a business entity, the growth of air traffic will undoubtedly increase. At present almost all the major airports in the world are run by a separate management as a business entity. The writer is retired Flight Engineer and former president of the Flight Engineers & Navigators Association of Bangladesh