Efforts to salvage Biman

THE successive governments since independence have been treating Bangladesh Biman -- that represents the nation during its travel on the international routes -- as a problem child whose only job is to throw problems at the authorities concerned and cry for more funds. Biman has never been able to demonstrate success, for whatever reasons. Billions of takas have meanwhile been pumped into this behemoth; new aircraft, though not to the required level, were added to its fleet at different points of time and many face-lifting measures have been taken to improve its image. But all these efforts to bring it out of the ditch have gone down the drain. The government for some time was also on the look-out for international partners to operate the national airline profitably, but no prospective partner did ever show up. As if as the last-ditch effort to save Biman, the government last year turned it into a public limited company and trimmed its staff size through shedding 2,000 employees. This has been done with the hope that by becoming a corporate body, Biman will be able to demonstrate at least some semblance of success.
Finally, to cure this terminally ill state-controlled body, now with its refurbished look as a corporate entity -- though remaining still under government control for all practical purposes with its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) lacking in power to exercise that his counterparts in other corporatised entities do -- the newly constituted Board of Directors of Biman has taken another big decision of buying eight new large aircraft. It is undoubtedly going to be a big show for Biman, once eight new aircraft from the Boeing company in the USA are added to its present ageing fleet of 12 aircraft, by next five to ten years. If the cause of Biman's woes lies in the number of aircraft it possesses, then it is without doubt an occasion to celebrate.
However, the decision to buy eight new aircraft will take a longer period for its operationalisation as the supply of the same will not immediately take place. Biman badly needs the support of additional aircraft under a rational arrangement for continuing and maintaining its existing operations on the routes that it has been running, without disruption to any services and schedules thereof. Here, the Board of Directors of Biman will have to act firmly and decisively without loss of valuable time. In this context, the authorities concerned will have to be quite serious about keeping Biman in full operation during this interim period. In this context, they must ensure that the supplier of the new generation eight passenger aircraft fulfils its reported commitment to extend allout cooperation for arranging an equal number of identical but used aircraft on lease basis.
The funding arrangement for the purchase of eight latest generation passenger aircraft involving an amount of US$ 1.26 billion, equivalent to Taka 882 billion, through credit supports largely of the US-based Exim Bank and partly of local banks, has carefully been dealt with, by Biman's Board of Directors. The rate of interest on credit funds for this purchase deal will be 6.0 per cent. Furthermore, Biman will not seek any fund from the government to meet the huge cost of this big deal with the Boeing company.
Meanwhile, the proposed deal with the supplier also includes supports for staff training, planning route, adopting marketing strategy and developing airport. That is quite important and the new Biman management should focus its full attention to make sure that such supports are provided in qualitative terms to the related Biman personnel. To all appearances, real efforts are, thus, now on to finally put Biman back on track. So, all will be waiting keeping their fingers crossed to see the success of the move to salvage Biman.