Lack of dynamism in Biman
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
S.M. Nasimul Haque
It needed the intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to end the strike by the pilots of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The recent troubles in Biman only go to show how pathetic is our attitude towards development and despite all the certificates, how miserably we have failed to apply what we have learnt to inculcate innovation with dynamism.
One does not have to scream to prove that he is right, everything can be settled amicably. But Biman management angrily reacted to the legitimate demands of its employees. The employees forced the management to gulp their own spit. Despite that, the management took recourse to dilly-dallying in the implementation of the agreement just to harass the employees and, in the bargain, satisfy their hurt ego. In the process, they antagonised the pilots for no rhyme or reason.
There will always be difference of opinion but education teaches us to sit across the table and settle the difference as best as possible. Here, to resolve, intent is more important than connivance. We must first "agree to disagree" and for that, understand that no love or labour will be lost between the two parties should the negotiation fail. In such exchanges, intelligence must be allowed to prevail. Antagonizing one another is never a solution. In that case, "might is right" comes into play.
The Biman employees in general do hard work to keep the airline going (out of love for the company). And so if Biman makes profit, it is only natural to ask for recognition of their effort through enhancement of remunerations. Whether their demand will be accepted or not, needs discussion across the table. Creation of antagonism by outright refusal to accept such demands is shortsighted.
Over the years, the Biman management has always deprived the employees on the pretext that "you already get good financial benefits." Everybody likes improvement of some sort in the quality of life. But it has been observed that the crooks and those in the helm of affairs drained the airline of its resources through cheating and stealing while depriving the employees. That is probably the reason why the employees react to such idiosyncrasies by the management and the aviation ministry. If one cares to look at the past, one will notice that most of the time the management did their best not to give benefits to the employees. Most of the governments, realizing that the cost of living index had gone up, gave relief to the citizens of this country but not the employees of Biman. Why? Was it jealousy or just simple idiocy? Aren't these employees citizens of the same country? Don't they also deserve a better life?
If the management does not realize that, increasing the age limit benefits not only the pilots, but also Biman as well, then they should look for odd jobs as this technicality is not understood by them. This failure is called callousness and one should not indulge in such callousness and waste everybody's time and national wealth. It is imperative to let birds of feather flock together. Professionals from within should be allowed to run the organization to see better days and earn fame, as they understand aviation business better than others.
Neither the pilots nor the business of aviation is ordinary. The people who work as pilots are unique in more than one way. They handle multimillion dollar equipment with valuable lives and to avert any disaster they get only a split second with no time to review decisions. No other job is so demanding. They are the only people who are subjected to six-monthly medical check-up. Any slip and they are grounded. They do a job under unusual circumstances in the air under conditions that don't prevail on the ground like turbulence, fog, thunderstorm, jet stream, rain, sand storm, volcanic ash, so on and so forth. And so in recognition of their risk involvement, they are paid more than others. This, possibly, is a point for jealousy for others and they also do not understand the implication of the job or comprehend the difficulties the pilots face while flying through the odds. Pilots are always required to be 100% fit physically, mentally and professionally.
Like multinational companies, Biman also does business outside its borders and that makes it a sort of multinational company. Obviously the salary structure will be different from and better than the national pay scale. Somehow, our people cannot accept this and so the problem starts. When Biman employees compare its salary structure with other airlines, they are rightfully doing so. This needs to be understood by the management. The fuel price, embarkation fees, airport tax, fly-over tax, ticket fare, maintenance cost, equipment cost, airplane cost, security check cost etc. are all of international standard, then why should the salary structure be any different? Why do our authorities expect anything different? The journalists seldom understand these technicalities. They should project the right things in right perspective to their readers .
Running a grocery store is one thing but running an airline is totally a different ball game. This is seldom realized by the people who brave to run Biman. It is not a day-to-day job or an individual's single-handed achievement. It is not the conductor who plays the music but the hands. Biman seldom got good conductor but always had good hands. Experiments with bureaucrats, armed forces personnel and professionals have been going on since the inception of Biman. A handful of bureaucrats proved slightly better than the rest possibly because of their ripe common sense. One thing they seldom did was mishandle power, worked more as a team and sought consensus where needed. But the armed forces people mostly tried to ram rod things into perspective, like fitting a square peg in a round hole and so they mostly failed. These experiments are costing the nation its wealth and the airline its fame.
Capt. S.M. Nasimul Haque (Rtd)
is a former president of the
Bangladesh Airline Pilots' Association.
e-mail: nasimbapa@yahoo.com; nasimul@agni.com; ellie@bdcom.com
It needed the intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to end the strike by the pilots of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines. The recent troubles in Biman only go to show how pathetic is our attitude towards development and despite all the certificates, how miserably we have failed to apply what we have learnt to inculcate innovation with dynamism.
One does not have to scream to prove that he is right, everything can be settled amicably. But Biman management angrily reacted to the legitimate demands of its employees. The employees forced the management to gulp their own spit. Despite that, the management took recourse to dilly-dallying in the implementation of the agreement just to harass the employees and, in the bargain, satisfy their hurt ego. In the process, they antagonised the pilots for no rhyme or reason.
There will always be difference of opinion but education teaches us to sit across the table and settle the difference as best as possible. Here, to resolve, intent is more important than connivance. We must first "agree to disagree" and for that, understand that no love or labour will be lost between the two parties should the negotiation fail. In such exchanges, intelligence must be allowed to prevail. Antagonizing one another is never a solution. In that case, "might is right" comes into play.
The Biman employees in general do hard work to keep the airline going (out of love for the company). And so if Biman makes profit, it is only natural to ask for recognition of their effort through enhancement of remunerations. Whether their demand will be accepted or not, needs discussion across the table. Creation of antagonism by outright refusal to accept such demands is shortsighted.
Over the years, the Biman management has always deprived the employees on the pretext that "you already get good financial benefits." Everybody likes improvement of some sort in the quality of life. But it has been observed that the crooks and those in the helm of affairs drained the airline of its resources through cheating and stealing while depriving the employees. That is probably the reason why the employees react to such idiosyncrasies by the management and the aviation ministry. If one cares to look at the past, one will notice that most of the time the management did their best not to give benefits to the employees. Most of the governments, realizing that the cost of living index had gone up, gave relief to the citizens of this country but not the employees of Biman. Why? Was it jealousy or just simple idiocy? Aren't these employees citizens of the same country? Don't they also deserve a better life?
If the management does not realize that, increasing the age limit benefits not only the pilots, but also Biman as well, then they should look for odd jobs as this technicality is not understood by them. This failure is called callousness and one should not indulge in such callousness and waste everybody's time and national wealth. It is imperative to let birds of feather flock together. Professionals from within should be allowed to run the organization to see better days and earn fame, as they understand aviation business better than others.
Neither the pilots nor the business of aviation is ordinary. The people who work as pilots are unique in more than one way. They handle multimillion dollar equipment with valuable lives and to avert any disaster they get only a split second with no time to review decisions. No other job is so demanding. They are the only people who are subjected to six-monthly medical check-up. Any slip and they are grounded. They do a job under unusual circumstances in the air under conditions that don't prevail on the ground like turbulence, fog, thunderstorm, jet stream, rain, sand storm, volcanic ash, so on and so forth. And so in recognition of their risk involvement, they are paid more than others. This, possibly, is a point for jealousy for others and they also do not understand the implication of the job or comprehend the difficulties the pilots face while flying through the odds. Pilots are always required to be 100% fit physically, mentally and professionally.
Like multinational companies, Biman also does business outside its borders and that makes it a sort of multinational company. Obviously the salary structure will be different from and better than the national pay scale. Somehow, our people cannot accept this and so the problem starts. When Biman employees compare its salary structure with other airlines, they are rightfully doing so. This needs to be understood by the management. The fuel price, embarkation fees, airport tax, fly-over tax, ticket fare, maintenance cost, equipment cost, airplane cost, security check cost etc. are all of international standard, then why should the salary structure be any different? Why do our authorities expect anything different? The journalists seldom understand these technicalities. They should project the right things in right perspective to their readers .
Running a grocery store is one thing but running an airline is totally a different ball game. This is seldom realized by the people who brave to run Biman. It is not a day-to-day job or an individual's single-handed achievement. It is not the conductor who plays the music but the hands. Biman seldom got good conductor but always had good hands. Experiments with bureaucrats, armed forces personnel and professionals have been going on since the inception of Biman. A handful of bureaucrats proved slightly better than the rest possibly because of their ripe common sense. One thing they seldom did was mishandle power, worked more as a team and sought consensus where needed. But the armed forces people mostly tried to ram rod things into perspective, like fitting a square peg in a round hole and so they mostly failed. These experiments are costing the nation its wealth and the airline its fame.
Capt. S.M. Nasimul Haque (Rtd)
is a former president of the
Bangladesh Airline Pilots' Association.
e-mail: nasimbapa@yahoo.com; nasimul@agni.com; ellie@bdcom.com