Govt moves to rescue ailing Biman

The government has moved to prepare guidelines for Biman Bangladesh Airlines to salvage the national airliner from its present sorry state, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Faruk Khan told parliament yesterday.
In its 40 years of operation, the national flag carrier had incurred losses for 23 years and made profit for 17 years, he said.
“We have taken various measures, including removal of the Biman aircraft that require excessive maintenance and reducing dependency on leased aircraft, to get rid of the situation,” responded Faruk Khan to lawmakers' queries.
The expenditure on Biman's crew members' stay at foreign hotels would be reduced to cut the airliner's operation cost, the minister said, adding, “The online ticket booking service will also be enhanced to cut expenditure in global distributing system.”
In his scripted reply, the minister briefly portrayed the present sorry state of Biman. He said the time schedule of the airliner had to be changed on several occasions due to the shortage of aircraft.
According to him, fuel price hike, excessive expenditure in maintenance of age-old aircraft, use of leased aircraft and no hike in the ticket price due to competitive market were responsible for the losses over the years.
In 2008, the then caretaker government turned Biman into a public limited company to make the national flag carrier a profitable venture and let it operate independently without any political influence.
The airliner made profit in 2008 and the first half of 2009, but after that it again plunged into losses.