Biman's long flights elusive!
THE national flag carrier Biman has been limping along with its under-utilized fleet of aircraft due to fewer pilots to fly the planes, on the one hand, and unwillingness of the higher management to push through existing plan to operate on long routes, on the other. Worse yet, lacking in commercial sense management high-ups have become captive in the hands of a corrupt vested group that exploits Biman's present situation to their unfair advantage. It's hardly surprising that, Biman has been counting losses in terms of crores of taka annually.
One cannot, however, complain that Biman's lack of progress has been due to any resource shortage. For instance, of the four new long-range aircraft that Biman bought from Boeing, on average, one plane sits idle for four days a week. This is a huge wastage of the national asset, to say the least. Why is it so? Because the management, for reasons best known it, has not gone by the recommendations made by experts to fly Biman along the long-haul routes to Frankfurt, New York, Brussels, Manchester, Tokyo an so on for optimal use of its new planes. In a similar show of indifference, the management has not recruited any new pilot over the last four years, though experts advised it to recruit them to meet Biman's expanded fleet's requirements. Small wonder the US aviation authorities have put Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) under Category-2 depriving Biman of flight operation rights to US airports.
The government should overhaul Biman's present management to rescue it from its present state of being a losing concern what with its incompetence.
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