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No end to Biman's woes

Sayeda Akter
Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national flag carrier, continues to be a curious organisation, thanks to mismanagement and lack of planning.
Starting from fleet mismanagement to loss-making routes, it is a sorry sight all around, aviation analysts said.
Biman has been a loss-making concern for a number of years, yet the authorities involved do not appear to have taken any concrete step to stem the losses.
At present, Biman runs up huge operating costs thanks to its fleet of 13 dated — thus fuel-intensive -- aircraft. The airline spends a mammoth 50 percent of its total budget on fuel costs alone.
Not just that, the fleet is made up of six different types of vessels, meaning a sizeable technical staff is required for the
running of the fleet. Had it consisted of the same model of planes, Biman need not have employed the six separate sets of technical crews as it does now.
Owing to the dated nature of the fleet, industry insiders fear that the operations might completely break down in 2013, when the majority of the fleet is due for grounding.
Although the government took the initiative to purchase 10 planes in recognition of the possibility, that plan, too, ran aground due to the fund crisis.
Biman bought two Boeings towards the end of 2011 but foiled to pay the first two installments amounting Tk 240 crore. Two Boeing 777s are due for delivery but going by the fund issues, it remainsup in the air.
There are plans to lease three aircraft from Boeing as a short-term solution but insiders consider that proposition equally flawed, as it entails paying $2.7 Of the 18 routes the flag carrier operates, only Dhaka-Singapore and Dhaka-Jeddah routes rake in profits.
Furthermore, Biman appears to be at sea in making the airlines more inviting to passengers. For example, last year Biman abruptly increased its ticket prices to levels higher than that of other airlines, which, naturally, led to near-empty flights on most routes.
Neither does it have any budget for marketing purposes; not for print advertisements, not for billboards, none whatsoever.
“Not a dime!” lamented an official of Biman, preferring not to be named.
Biman had an operational deficit of Tk 874 crore in the first eight months of fiscal 2011-12. It owesTk 247 crore-plus to its fuel supplier Padma Oil, more than Tk 270 crore to Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh andTk 56 crore to the National Board of Revenue in travel taxes, Biman officials said.
Biman incurred a loss of over Tk 200 crore in 2010-2011.
Sheikh Nasiruddin Ahmed, acting managing director and chief executive officer of Biman, said: “We have problems and we are trying to fix them. But nothing changes overnight.”