Best Aviation to offer services for transportation of shrimp fry

Best Aviation which runs the only private helicopter service in the country, said yesterday that they will offer services with two aircrafts for carriage of over 100 crore of shrimp fry to the shrimp cultivation area at Cox's Bazaar from the south of the country.

Two Russian made AN 26 aircraft's will arrive in Dhaka from Russia on January 16 for the service to begin from January 18.

Managing Director (MD) of Best Aviation Limited M Haider Uzzaman, disclosed this while talking to the local journalists at a city hotel in Sylhet yesterday.

The mortality rate of shrimp fry is less when flown by aircraft, he said. About 50 per cent of the fry die when carried by truck from Satkhira for cultivation to Cox's Bazaar. The cost of carriage through air however, is not very high.

The MD of best aviation said that they introduced cargo plane service from Dhaka to Chittagong during the floods in 1988. It helped the garment sector to transport finished goods to Chittagong and bring back raw materials to Dhaka, he added.

He also said that their existing lone private helicopter service will provide emergency service to carry patients from remote areas. The aviation is also planning to introduce a 'honeymoon package' across the country.

They said two patients can be carried at a time from any remote part of the country to the capital or elsewhere. Tk 90,000 is charged for one flying hour. Tk 5,000 is to be paid for every extra hour. Two hour rest is allowed by the authority after every one hour of flight.

The aviation has successfully completed 22 hours of flying in the first month after it opened service on December of last year. They said they have found a good response from different sectors.

"At present we have one helicopter in hand, we will raise the number if demand increases," Haider said.

Director of flight Mizanur Rahman, Parveen A Nahar Lucy, senior Manager Co-ordination and local agent at Sylhet Khandaker Shiper Ahmed were also present during the goodwill visit to Sylhet.