Editorial
Biman's schedule
Make it functional and viable
It is utterly disconcerting to note that Biman Bangladesh continues to sink deeper in its own muck every day. We were actually aghast to learn that the authorities of many international airports like London, Jeddah, Dubai, Riyadh, Kuwait and Rome have issued warning to Biman for its erratic flight schedule on busy international routes. These airports have warned it of not granting slots or imposing fines if it failed to be on schedule in future. We would like to ask the Biman authorities if it has touched a new low in its good will.
Biman's predicament seems to be a never-ending tale. At the very outset, the airlines became the hunting ground of hoards of unscrupulous people to rip it apart for making a fortune for themselves. Lack of professionalism and invasive corruption in every department left the airlines in total disarray in the last thirty-five years. Each government in power undertook various measures, some involving huge sums, but none yielded any palpable result. Things worsened during the tenure of the immediate past government when a number of ambitious projects only increased Biman's debts to various agencies. The nosedive of the airlines became obvious when the authorities began to close down profitable routes one after another because of incurring loss and in some cases shortage of big aircraft.
One cannot but feel disturbed to see that when all the other airlines in the world, especially those belonging to some of the countries in the region, are operating efficiently and making profit, our flag carrier cannot even operate the existing aircraft as per schedule. We have high quality pilots and engineers of our own and we believe the government has the required finance at its disposal to add some aircraft to the fleet. This no doubt would improve its capacity to maintain international schedules.
We feel the national flag carrier should be strengthened with the needed support to make it a viable airliner of the country.
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