A chaos over Hajj flight schedule that surfaced due to a backlog of more than 850 pilgrims in the last two days is expected to be resolved by today as a leased aircraft will join the Saudi-bound Hajj fleet.

Kabo, the leased aircraft, received flying permission from Saudi Arabia Civil Aviation Authority (GACA) yesterday evening.

"The backlog should be cleared by tomorrow [today] evening, as we are operating extra flights," said Biman Managing Director Kevin John Steele yesterday.

On Saturday, 582 pilgrims could not fly even after the completion of their check-in formalities at the Hajj camp. On Sunday, 268 pilgrims had gone

through the same ordeal.

They were supposed to be ferried by the 582-seater leased aircraft, Boeing 747-400.

The Biman MD said they would operate a flight of Boeing 747-400 at 7:40am today.

Yesterday, Biman operated a 419-seater Boeing 777-300 and a 314-seater DC-10. The DC-10 was added to the fleet as permission to fly Boeing 747-400 could not be obtained from the Saudi authority.

Meanwhile, an inquiry committee has been formed comprising officials from the ministry of civil aviation and the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh to investigate the reason behind the debacle.

However, both Biman and the Nigeria-based Kabo Air blamed each other for the schedule disaster.

The Biman MD said Kabo began the processing to obtain the GACA approval at the last moment and that was why the delay had occurred.

As per contract, Kabo was supposed to manage the permission. But it did not inform the Biman authorities of not having managed permission in due time, he said.

Kabo representative in Dhaka Iftekharul Alam alleged that the Biman authorities were responsible for delay in getting permission to fly the leased aircraft.

He claimed that he had sent all documents for acquiring permission to Biman's leddah office through Biman’s flight control office in Dhaka at least 25 days back.

The Jeddah office was supposed to place the application to GACA through the General Sales Agents (GSA), but it could not do so as the GSA had not had its license renewed, he said.

Iftekharul Alam also said Kabo was responsible for obtaining the aircraft's insurance, while Biman was responsible for passengers' insurance.

Yet, Biman had asked Kabo on August 23 to complete proceedings for passengers' insurance as well, since it did not do it by itself, he added.

The aircraft obtained insurance for its passengers from a US insurance company yesterday evening.

Steele, however, said Biman had paid Kabo to obtain insurance for passengers on August 23, but it could not complete the work in due time.

Asked why Kabo had placed the aircraft at Shahjalal Airport on Friday, Iftekharul Alam said under a provision of the contract Biman was supposed to make 10 percent payment to Kabo soon after the signing of the agreement on August 19.

But the Biman authority had not done so.

Kabo, showing its responsibility, took the aircraft to the airport on its own fuel cost and only then Biman had cleared 10 percent payment, he added.

The Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (Caab) had blacklisted Kabo for committing fraud in relation to renting an aircraft in 2009.

Earlier, Biman could not take lease of any aircraft even after floating tenders thrice.

Finally, it took lease of the 21-year old aircraft at 11,750 per block hour from Kabo, and that was why the Caab had to withdraw its earlier bar of not issuing a no-objection certificate to a more than 20 years' old aircraft.

A block hour is the service hour of an aircraft from leaving an airport to parking at its destination.