GMG Airlines becomes Bangladesh's first private airline to fly overseas on July 1 when it launches flights on Chittagong-Kolkata route after the government agreed to allocate it four more routes.

"We expect to operate our first flight on Chittagong-Kolkata route from July 1 and we will start operation on all other allocated routes by October 1," Managing Director of GMG Airlines Shahab Sattar told The Daily Star.

GMG will not require to procure new plane for Chittagong-Kolkata flight as it can use its existing 37-seater Dash 8-100 and 50-seater Dash 8-300 aircraft in the 35-minute flight, he said. But it needs to procure new jet planes to serve other destinations, he added.

Like national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the GMG will

also operate two weekly flights on Chittagong-Kolkata route. The country's lone operational private airline however is yet to set the airfare but its officials said the fare on the route will be competitive with Biman's Tk 6,646 (one way).

When the GMG received air transport operating licence (Atol) on January 13 with permission to operate on Dhaka-Colombo via Chennai, Dhaka-Male via Colombo and Chittagong-Chiang Mai routes, it was sceptic of its international future due to allocation of these 'less attractive routes'.

After long negotiation, the government recently decided to add Chittagong-Kolkata and Dhaka-Kathmandu routes to GMG's existing ones.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism also recently asked the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (Caab) to immediately start negotiations with its Indian

counterpart to increase flight frequency in the air services agreement to facilitate the GMG operate on Dhaka-Kolkata and Dhaka-Delhi routes.

The air services agreement between Bangladesh and India allows one or more Bangladeshi airline to operate 30 weekly flights to Indian destinations and Biman occupies 27 of them. The GMG has been permitted to fly on Dhaka-Chennai route, but the agreement does not permit a Bangladeshi airline to fly to Chennai. This prompted the ministry to ask Caab to include Chennai in the revised agreement.

The GMG began its maiden flights on April 6, 1998 and now connects Dhaka to Chittagong, Sylhet, Jessore, Barisal and Cox's Bazar with 28 flights a day on average. Its fleet comprises a 37-seater Dash 8-100 and a 50-seater Dash 8-300.