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Hajj agencies agree to new fare, but plane crisis looms

Reaz Ahmad
The Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (Haab) has finally accepted the latest government offer of $1050 as hajj flight fare per pilgrim.
The executive committee of Haab took this decision at a meeting yesterday afternoon.
The representative body of 363 hajj agencies, Haab was agitating for fixing the fare for 56,000 non-ballotee hajj pilgrims at par with 2,600 ballotee pilgrims at $950 each.
The national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines which is in a bad shape with its dwindling fleet had
already expressed its inability to fly more than 18,000 hajj pilgrims (2,600 ballotee and 15,400 non-ballotee).
This left the overwhelming majority of indenting pilgrims in a state of uncertainty about performing hajj in January next year due to nonavailability of flights.
Representatives of foreign airlines including Saudi Arabian Airlines, Qatar Airways and Kuwait Airways, who had earlier agreed to fly pilgrims from Bangladesh at $1150 per passenger, are now declining to carry them at the revised fare rate of $1050 as decided by Biman's management ®he ^tar
board on Friday, a day after axing of state minister Mir Mohammad Nasir Uddin from the civil aviation ministry amidst a growing hajj flight fare fiasco.
Haab yesterday resumed depositing 'Muallim Fees' and ticket booking that it kept suspended since November 8.
As per previous schedules, today (November 20) is the last date for depositing 'Muallim Fees' to the Saudi Government but Haab yesterday appealed to the religious affairs ministry to persuade the Saudi authorities to extend the time limit by five days.
Haab General Secretary Jinnur Ahmed Chowdhury Dipu told The Daily Star yesterday that the question of getting enough flights for ferrying the pilgrims still remained unresolved as the hajj agencies agreed to ask all non-ballotee pilgrims to pay a fare of $100 each more than the ballotee pilgrims.
Area Manager of Saudi Arabian Airlines, which had traditionally been equally sharing with Biman in flying Bangladeshi pilgrims each year, is on a visit to Jeddah and Saudia's view could
not be known yesterday.
But Area Manager of Qatar Airways in Bangladesh, Shamshad Ahsan said the representatives of foreign airliners would meet today to take stock of the latest situation arising out of Biman's slashing hajj flight fare from $1150 to $1050 within a span of just four days.
Meanwhile, newly appointed State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is scheduled to sit with the ministry officials and Biman authorities today separately to identify the problems and chalk out programmes to address those.
"My first priority will be to identify the burning problems and take immediate steps to solve those. However, nothing can be solved overnight. But I will try sincerely and I know if all of us try, problems can be solved," he told a local news agency yesterday.