Understanding the Biman
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Muhammad Zakiul Islam
The cute five-letter Bangla word, 'Biman', the surname of the national airlines, speaks a lot about itself and means a lot to the millions of people. Surnames are perhaps the most favoured and treasured possessions of its holders, and also to the ones who hold someone dearly. Although there have been some attempts in the past to do away with the word, no suitable alternative could be found and nostalgia and our undying love for the mother tongue prevailed, thankfully so. No other Bangla word so aptly and so poignantly describes the entity, the raison d'être and the purpose of the organisation that this small, little word stands for.
Flying is a serious business and the business of flying is even a more serious one. The profession of aviation is a skillfully organized, neatly structured and highly regulated one, be it in the military or in the civil field or even as a sport. Organising personal and general safety of the passengers and the people on the ground, maintaining schedule regularity and ensuring service and comfort for the passengers on the ground and in the air call for extraordinary personal conduct and a deeper sense of commitment and discipline from the crew and the supporting organs on the ground and, in fact, going right up to the highest level in the hierarchy.
The history of commercial aviation is about three quarter of a century old. Although air transportation as an industry has matured over the years, it had its triumphs and tribulations along the flight path. The cruising has never been easy, rather experts have identified that there is a cyclic pattern after every ten years or so. Although the design and manufacture of aircraft, the power plants and the avionics system have undergone phenomenal changes and the supporting system of marketing, reservation, communication, flight planning, navigation facilities and airport services and ground handling , inter alia, have developed and matured with equal pace, it is the other factors like the spiralling fuel price and the travel behaviours of the passengers conditioned heavily by such factors as recession, health and safety concerns, war etc that have acted as significant determinants for the performance and health of the industry from time to time.
Back home, there had been some concern in the recent days about the lack of expertise on commercial aviation in the country. While the observation might be correct, what is also true is that not many educational institutions in the world offer aviation management as a separate discipline by itself, let alone in Bangladesh. Although some professional courses are offered by the IATA and the aircraft manufacturers, it is only recently that some universities have come up with Executive MBA programme in aviation management in the western countries. Be that as it may, this is no way to suggest that we have to hire experts to run the day-to-day affairs of the Biman and to man the Board of Directors of the Biman. Some learned quarters have cast aspersions on the ability of the members of the Board and criticised frequent changes in the Board. While the changes are matters of expediency, their concern about the expertise of the members are ill-founded and without much logic. All the members are luminaries in their respective fields, armed with high education and years of experience in flying, in administration, in jurisprudence and in business and finance. Some even possess the highest level of experience and a high degree of conceptual understanding and skill. And it is that degree of conceptual skill, coupled with the leadership and managerial acumen, that matters most at such levels rather than the technical knowledge per se. Together they provide the vision and guidance to the senior executives who are specialists in their respective areas to run and manage the business and other affairs of the airline. Thus, it would be utterly foolhardy to expect or compare the board of directors of an airline with a medical board where all the members are drawn from the same profession.
A general curiosity: There seems to be a general ambivalence about the Biman. I think such a mood is borne out not so much of antipathy but of a general curiosity mixed with intense interest and a high level of expectations from the airline. The airline is under a constant vigil and always under the critical cursor of the general public and the media. Even an apparently insignificant event hits the headline. The men and women working in the airlines are not oblivious of this high visibility. While they are sensitive to such public sentiment and try to draw lessons from these, what is de-motivating for them is the hyperbole of insinuation of some of the events in which they have hardly any role to play. There is no denying of the fact that where the Biman stands today and how it had come to such a position is due mainly to the hard work and contribution of the thousands of professionals who worked for the airline in the past. Needless to mention that it is very easy to criticise an organisation and bring down an institution, but it is very difficult to build one. And it is even more difficult and takes painstaking effort to rebuild and restore an institution and re-capture its image.
Having been converted into a public limited company, the airline has charted out on a new course and that course is supposed to be run, flown and managed according to its own flight plan. But the going is not going to be easy. With a fleet of a handful of old and vintage aircraft, the airline is passing through a crucial period of its existence that it probably never faced before. These are hard times for the air transportation industry world over. These are hard times for the vary survival of airlines like the Biman. And contrary to the popular belief, I will like to emphatically assert that the Biman, as a business enterprise and national entity, has also matured over the years, occasional hiccups and predicaments notwithstanding. And it is a matter of record that even the well-managed and leading aviation giants of the world are having to count their moments of agony. The Biman family has not given up yet and they will not give up in overcoming the present impasse.
The need of hour: The acquisition of modern, state-of-the-art aircraft has become a sine qua non for the survival of the national flag carrier. Unfortunately, the Biman is still perceived by some as a 38-years-old nationalised entity which is still in its infancy and could not quite grow in terms of infrastructural setup, maturity and responsibility to acquire and assume the modernized role. The facts are otherwise. Contrary to the popular belief -- and I wish to assert this with firm conviction -- the Biman is endowed with a very well-defined and well-structured organisation, physical infrastructure, well laid-out rules and regulations, modern marketing and route network, computerised revenue management system, modern engineering and communication facilities and one of the best team of air and ground crew. What the Biman does not have and needs immediately is a fleet of modern aircraft. The operation of a modern airline is a function of a complex matrix of factors that are mentioned above, more so for a small airline that flies to two dozen or so international destinations. Beauty of air transportation is dispatch regularity, and ensuring safety and comfort of the customers, both in the air and on the ground. And all these are functions of one main variable -- the type of equipment that the airline operates. Except for a few instances, the Biman hardly had the privilege of flying new machines in its 38-year existence. Yet it is expected to compare itself and compete with some of the world class airlines like the Emirates and Singaporean which are lucky to be able to order aircraft right out of the drawing board and act as launch customer.
Happily, there is a silver lining on the horizon. The Biman has signed a contract for purchasing 10 new aircraft from the Boeing. Although previously targeted to be delivered in 2013, the Boeing Company has come forward with an accelerated schedule which could start in two years from now. A definitive agreement has already been signed between the Boeing and the Biman, and what we need now is decisive action and an accelerated decision-making process to materialise the programme. We must not get bogged down in mere semantics in providing organisational and policy support.
The national flag carrier came into being barely within two weeks of our Victory Day. The Biman had the great pride and unique privilege of carrying the national flag of the newly-born nation across the international skies and it has been proudly doing so ever since. But the Biman is in need of support. It needs moral, material, popular and policy support for its survival, for its future growth and for its development.
..........................................................
The writer is the MD & CEO of the Biman. He can be reached at
e-mail:
The cute five-letter Bangla word, 'Biman', the surname of the national airlines, speaks a lot about itself and means a lot to the millions of people. Surnames are perhaps the most favoured and treasured possessions of its holders, and also to the ones who hold someone dearly. Although there have been some attempts in the past to do away with the word, no suitable alternative could be found and nostalgia and our undying love for the mother tongue prevailed, thankfully so. No other Bangla word so aptly and so poignantly describes the entity, the raison d'être and the purpose of the organisation that this small, little word stands for.
Flying is a serious business and the business of flying is even a more serious one. The profession of aviation is a skillfully organized, neatly structured and highly regulated one, be it in the military or in the civil field or even as a sport. Organising personal and general safety of the passengers and the people on the ground, maintaining schedule regularity and ensuring service and comfort for the passengers on the ground and in the air call for extraordinary personal conduct and a deeper sense of commitment and discipline from the crew and the supporting organs on the ground and, in fact, going right up to the highest level in the hierarchy.
The history of commercial aviation is about three quarter of a century old. Although air transportation as an industry has matured over the years, it had its triumphs and tribulations along the flight path. The cruising has never been easy, rather experts have identified that there is a cyclic pattern after every ten years or so. Although the design and manufacture of aircraft, the power plants and the avionics system have undergone phenomenal changes and the supporting system of marketing, reservation, communication, flight planning, navigation facilities and airport services and ground handling , inter alia, have developed and matured with equal pace, it is the other factors like the spiralling fuel price and the travel behaviours of the passengers conditioned heavily by such factors as recession, health and safety concerns, war etc that have acted as significant determinants for the performance and health of the industry from time to time.
Back home, there had been some concern in the recent days about the lack of expertise on commercial aviation in the country. While the observation might be correct, what is also true is that not many educational institutions in the world offer aviation management as a separate discipline by itself, let alone in Bangladesh. Although some professional courses are offered by the IATA and the aircraft manufacturers, it is only recently that some universities have come up with Executive MBA programme in aviation management in the western countries. Be that as it may, this is no way to suggest that we have to hire experts to run the day-to-day affairs of the Biman and to man the Board of Directors of the Biman. Some learned quarters have cast aspersions on the ability of the members of the Board and criticised frequent changes in the Board. While the changes are matters of expediency, their concern about the expertise of the members are ill-founded and without much logic. All the members are luminaries in their respective fields, armed with high education and years of experience in flying, in administration, in jurisprudence and in business and finance. Some even possess the highest level of experience and a high degree of conceptual understanding and skill. And it is that degree of conceptual skill, coupled with the leadership and managerial acumen, that matters most at such levels rather than the technical knowledge per se. Together they provide the vision and guidance to the senior executives who are specialists in their respective areas to run and manage the business and other affairs of the airline. Thus, it would be utterly foolhardy to expect or compare the board of directors of an airline with a medical board where all the members are drawn from the same profession.
A general curiosity: There seems to be a general ambivalence about the Biman. I think such a mood is borne out not so much of antipathy but of a general curiosity mixed with intense interest and a high level of expectations from the airline. The airline is under a constant vigil and always under the critical cursor of the general public and the media. Even an apparently insignificant event hits the headline. The men and women working in the airlines are not oblivious of this high visibility. While they are sensitive to such public sentiment and try to draw lessons from these, what is de-motivating for them is the hyperbole of insinuation of some of the events in which they have hardly any role to play. There is no denying of the fact that where the Biman stands today and how it had come to such a position is due mainly to the hard work and contribution of the thousands of professionals who worked for the airline in the past. Needless to mention that it is very easy to criticise an organisation and bring down an institution, but it is very difficult to build one. And it is even more difficult and takes painstaking effort to rebuild and restore an institution and re-capture its image.
Having been converted into a public limited company, the airline has charted out on a new course and that course is supposed to be run, flown and managed according to its own flight plan. But the going is not going to be easy. With a fleet of a handful of old and vintage aircraft, the airline is passing through a crucial period of its existence that it probably never faced before. These are hard times for the air transportation industry world over. These are hard times for the vary survival of airlines like the Biman. And contrary to the popular belief, I will like to emphatically assert that the Biman, as a business enterprise and national entity, has also matured over the years, occasional hiccups and predicaments notwithstanding. And it is a matter of record that even the well-managed and leading aviation giants of the world are having to count their moments of agony. The Biman family has not given up yet and they will not give up in overcoming the present impasse.
The need of hour: The acquisition of modern, state-of-the-art aircraft has become a sine qua non for the survival of the national flag carrier. Unfortunately, the Biman is still perceived by some as a 38-years-old nationalised entity which is still in its infancy and could not quite grow in terms of infrastructural setup, maturity and responsibility to acquire and assume the modernized role. The facts are otherwise. Contrary to the popular belief -- and I wish to assert this with firm conviction -- the Biman is endowed with a very well-defined and well-structured organisation, physical infrastructure, well laid-out rules and regulations, modern marketing and route network, computerised revenue management system, modern engineering and communication facilities and one of the best team of air and ground crew. What the Biman does not have and needs immediately is a fleet of modern aircraft. The operation of a modern airline is a function of a complex matrix of factors that are mentioned above, more so for a small airline that flies to two dozen or so international destinations. Beauty of air transportation is dispatch regularity, and ensuring safety and comfort of the customers, both in the air and on the ground. And all these are functions of one main variable -- the type of equipment that the airline operates. Except for a few instances, the Biman hardly had the privilege of flying new machines in its 38-year existence. Yet it is expected to compare itself and compete with some of the world class airlines like the Emirates and Singaporean which are lucky to be able to order aircraft right out of the drawing board and act as launch customer.
Happily, there is a silver lining on the horizon. The Biman has signed a contract for purchasing 10 new aircraft from the Boeing. Although previously targeted to be delivered in 2013, the Boeing Company has come forward with an accelerated schedule which could start in two years from now. A definitive agreement has already been signed between the Boeing and the Biman, and what we need now is decisive action and an accelerated decision-making process to materialise the programme. We must not get bogged down in mere semantics in providing organisational and policy support.
The national flag carrier came into being barely within two weeks of our Victory Day. The Biman had the great pride and unique privilege of carrying the national flag of the newly-born nation across the international skies and it has been proudly doing so ever since. But the Biman is in need of support. It needs moral, material, popular and policy support for its survival, for its future growth and for its development.
..........................................................
The writer is the MD & CEO of the Biman. He can be reached at
e-mail: