United Airways takes back to skies today

The trouble-torn United Airways will resume its flight operations from today (Saturday), following an amicable solution to the crisis that led to suspension of its flights from Wednesday.
"We are hopeful of resuming the domestic flight operations from Saturday," said flight operations director M Eliash, who announced the suspension on Wednesday evening, as the company's new board failed to come up with plans to keep it afloat.
"However, it will take some 30-40 hours to resume the international flights, as activating the reservation system is maintained internationally in Dubai," said Eliash while talking to the Financial Express (FE) after a meeting between the company's present management and the immediate-past chairman and managing director.   
The crisis was resolved on Friday when the immediate-past chairman and MD Tasbirul Ahmed Chowdhury consented to take over his earlier charges at the request of the present chairman and the MD.
Earlier, the five-hour close-door meeting between the newly-formed United Airways board of directors and Mr Tasbir ended at around 9pm on Thursday. The meeting was attended, among others, by its newly-appointed chairman Mohammed Mahtabur Rahman, acting managing director Shahinoor Alam and three other directors.
Tasbirul Ahmed Chowdhury, who served the airline as the chairman and MD since its inception in 2007, agreed to resume his responsibilities, considering 'the interest of the airways, its passengers and 138,000 shareholders'.
The share prices of United Airways (BD) Ltd fell by 7.63 per cent on Thursday, following the news on suspension of service by the company, which made most of the shareholders worried about their investment.
The airline suspended its operation from Wednesday, mainly due to 'severe financial crisis'. A group of its senior officials made the announcement at a press conference on the day, only days after major changes were brought to its top management. Top-level management crisis and serious fund constraints are learnt to be the main reasons behind suspension of flight operations.
Parleys were going on to bring back the new management to the business, but the officials apparently failed to persuade the new management. At last the coveted meeting took place on Friday.
The sudden flight suspensions of United Air caused severe sufferings to its passengers. Some 2,300 to 2,400 inbound and outbound passengers got stranded.
Set up in 2007, the lone listed airline has 11 aircraft -- two Airbus 310-325s, five MD-83s, three ATR 72s and one DASH-8 100. It was operating domestic flights to Chittagong, Sylhet, Jessore, Cox's Bazar, Rajshahi, Saidpur and Ishwardi. On the international routes, it was flying to Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu, Kolkata, Jeddah, Bangkok, Muscat and Singapore.
    mzrbd@yahoo.com