Biman to induct two aircraft to replace ageing ones

Biman has decided to add two Boeing 737-800s from GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) to its fleet for 60 months on dry lease to tackle any immediate problem in its flight operation.

"We've decided to take two 737-800s on dry lease as the airliner decided to phase out its two aircraft after September this year," a senior official at Biman told the news agency. 

"We will now start negotiating with the company for finishing the final tasks," he added. He also mentioned that Biman is very much optimistic to include the aircraft by this year.

A Biman board member said they gave conditional approval to start final negotiation with the lesser company.

The conditions include improving in-flight entertainment system and reconfiguring seat arrangement as per the desire of Biman with re-registration.

The seating capacity of the two aircraft will be of 162 each, with 12 in business class and 150 in economy class, according to Biman's tender documents, adding the two aircrafts' age will be not be more than 10 years.

Meanwhile, the national flag carrier scrapped its previous move to induct two 777-200 or 777-200ERs and one 777-300ER or one 737-800 along with one 777-300ER into its fleet under dry lease system for sixty months.

Biman is currently operating flights on seven domestic and 15 international routes of the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

According to sources at the civil aviation and tourism ministry and Biman, the national flag carrier decided to resume its operations on Dhaka-Delhi-Dhaka and Dhaka-Hong Kong-Dhaka routes.It planned to start its operations on number of routes including Dhaka-Guangzhou (China)- Dhaka, Dhaka-Colombo (Sri Lanka)-Dhaka,  Dhaka-Male (The Maldives)-Dhaka, and Dhaka-Narita (Japan)-Dhaka routes.

The airliner is in a process to resume its much-awaited Dhaka-New York-Dhaka route in the summer season in 2017 if the country's civil aviation authorities could be upgraded to category-1.

Biman reached an agreement with the US company for procuring 10 new generation aircraft, six of them have already been delivered.