Biman to use own planes for Hajj flights

Biman Bangladesh Airlines will use its own aircrafts - instead of taking lease - for operating Hajj flights, starting from Sunday, officials said.
The national flag carrier will not increase its fare despite jet-fuel price hike, they added.
They said these at a view-exchange meeting with journalists at the auditorium of Bangladesh Airlines Training Centre (BATC) near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in the capital on Wednesday.
Biman Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal along with other top officials of the airlines attended the meeting.
Addressing the media, the Biman MD said the airlines will carry around 29,000 hajis or half of the total pilgrims from the country this year.
He also said the airline has got only one month to operate flights before the Hajj this year, whereas it used to get more than two months in this regard earlier.
The airline was also preparing to take lease of aircraft for carrying the pilgrims, as it was not confirmed about their exact number. However, it will not use any aircraft under lease agreement.
The fare for each pilgrim has been fixed at Tk 1,40,000 this year, he said and added: "We are not raising the fare although jet-fuel price has increased by Tk 6.0 per litre."
Biman will operate a total of 130 flights to carry the pilgrims.
Regarding the Dhaka-Toronto flight, the Biman MD said it will begin on June 28 with technical landing in Istanbul.
"We've got all the licenses, and we've all the agreements to commence the flight from June 28."
But, the carrier is yet to complete billing and settlement planning (BSP), resulting in unavailability of tickets through agents. There is scope to sell tickets from Biman's own website, he added.
Biman's Chief of Flight Safety Captain Enamul Haque Talukder, Flight Operations Director Captain Md Siddiqur Rahman, General Manager of BFCC Mohammad Shamsul Karim, Corporate Planning and Training Director Air Commodore Dr. Md. Mahbub Jahan Khan, Director of Customer Services Md Siddiqur Rahman, Marketing and Sales Director Md. Zahid Hossain, Chief Financial Officer Md. Naoshad Hossain, Engineering and Material Management Director Air Commodore Mridha Md. Ekramuzzaman, and General Manager of Public Relations Tahera Khondoker also spoke on the occasion.
Meanwhile, bdnews24.com reports, a director of the national flag carrier said Biman learnt a lesson from incurring Tk 11 billion loss after taking lease of two Boeing 777-200 aircraft from Egypt.
The director, Air Commodore Mahbub Jahan Khan, and other officials faced journalists at HSIA after a team of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) visited the Biman headquarters to examine papers related to the leasing of the jets on Wednesday.
Asked about Biman's measures regarding the matter, Mr Mahbub said, "The most important thing is Biman has learnt a lesson from this. Biman formulated guidelines on aircraft lease after the incident."
"It has fixed how many meetings will be required and how many times the matter will be placed before the board before taking an aircraft on lease."
He noted that several rounds of investigation had been conducted into the leasing of the aircraft before he joined Biman in 2018.
"I've seen that the two aircraft are in Vietnam, from where they are supposed to be returned. We've started working amid this complexity."
The Biman MD, meanwhile, said the ACC is examining the papers following recommendations made by the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of civil aviation and tourism, and he has ordered the officials concerned to cooperate with the ACC.
Biman leased the aircraft from Egypt Air under a five-year deal in 2014. One of the planes was pressed into Biman service in March 2014, while the other was put in operation two months later.
Within a year of flying, the engine of one of the Boeing 777-200s went out of order, necessitating the leasing of another engine from Egypt Air in 2015 to keep the flight operational.
Things went further downhill when the engine of the other aircraft died a year and a half later, forcing Biman to take lease yet another engine to keep the plane flying.
Compounding the woes, this engine, too, broke down and was sent to another company in the US for repairs.
But the company did not provide a deadline to return repaired engine, and Biman ended up paying both the companies - they leased the engine from and the firm doing the repairs.
The parliamentary committee in September 2020 heard that the revenue made from the two aircraft totalled Tk 22 billion against expenditures running up to Tk 33 billion.
For these planes, the flag carrier had been giving subsidies of Tk 110 million per month before completing the payment in March 2020.

saif.febd@gmail.com