A move by the Biman Bangladesh Airlines to appoint a reputed international agency, for providing assistance in sourcing a variety of aircraft, faces a setback as the proposal found no acceptable response.
The last date for submission of the tender paper was April 24, 2014, however, sources confirmed that the response has not been satisfactory at all.
“Biman has floated the offer several times, but is yet to get a considerable response,” a well-placed source at Biman told the news agency.
Currently, the national flag carrier has no small aircraft for operating domestic flights.
In a bid to expand its fleet, Biman, now operating two domestic and 18 international destinations, had decided to appoint a reputed international agency for assistance in sourcing a variety of aircraft for both domestic and international routes. The aircraft procurement agency will be tasked to supply various aircraft to the national flag carrier from time to time.
Currently, Biman has four 777-300ERs, two 737-800s, one 777-200ER and two A310-300s in its fleet.
Meanwhile, Biman has decided to resume its domestic flights on different routes by the end of this year by procuring or leasing smaller aircraft, such as turboprop, suitable for operating on domestic routes.
On several occasions, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon had expressed his ministry’s determination to resume Biman’s domestic operations.
According to sources, the government has already taken steps to renovate the country’s five airports – Dhaka-Rajshahi, Dhaka-Saidpur, Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka-Jessore and Dhaka-Barisal.
The national flag carrier suspended all of its domestic flights from 2002 to 2012 due to huge losses and lack of aircraft. Later, it resumed domestic flights on a limited number of routes, including Dhaka-Chittagong-Dhaka and Dhaka-Sylhet-Dhaka.
Biman is now operating about 30 flights a week on its domestic routes with wide-bodied aircraft through its connecting flights in operation on international routes. But such operation is reducing the lifetime of the big aircraft, according to aviation experts.
Biman now operates 11 flights on Dhaka-Chittagong route, 14 flights on Chittagong-Dhaka and 5 flights on Sylhet-Dhaka routes.