Biman to relaunch domestic flights in early April

Biman Bangladesh Airlines is set to resume its domestic flights in the first week of April in an effort to grab a share of the growing pie.

To service the routes, the flag carrier will lease two planes -- Dash8-Q400 -- from Egypt's Smart Aviation for five years.

The aircraft, which come with 74 seats each, will arrive in Dhaka in late March and will jump into commercial service on April 6, Biman said in a statement.

Due to a shortage of planes, Biman suspended operations on four of the seven domestic routes in 2007. The last route -- Dhaka-Cox's Bazar -- was closed in June 2012.

At present, the airline takes passengers to and from Sylhet and Chittagong via its international flights.

The flag carrier's relaunch of domestic operations comes at a time when the local aviation market is heating up with a number of new players.

A new private carrier, US-Bangla Airlines, has already launched domestic flights, with another one, Epic Airways, set to start operations by the end of the year.

Currently, four private local airlines -- United, Regent, Novoair and US-Bangla -- fly mainly on four domestic routes: Dhaka-Chittagong, Dhaka-Cox's Bazar, Dhaka-Sylhet and Dhaka-Jessore.

The Dhaka-Chittagong route draws the highest volume of traffic followed by Dhaka-Jessore.

At present, 50,000-55,000 passengers fly nationally a month, with Dhaka-Chittagong accounting for 70 percent.

In 2014, some 680,420 people travelled nationally by air, up 5 percent year-on-year, according to data from Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh or CAAB.

With the acquisition of the two Dash8-Q400s, the agreement for which was signed on Tuesday, Biman's fleet now stands at 12. It runs 18 international routes at present, according to its website.