Resumption of the planned Dhaka-New York Biman flights from June has become uncertain as the national flag carrier’s board of directors refused to approve it.
A meeting of the Biman board of directors yesterday discussed the matter and decided not to resume the flights from June 4 as planned.
A few hours before the meeting, however, Biman’s Managing Director Kevin Steele had told reporters that they were ready to resume the airlines’ Dhaka-NY flights – after a break of eight years.
This was the first meeting of the board after its reshuffle this week by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Biman Chairman Air Marshal Jamal Uddin Ahmed presided over the meeting.
A director, who attended the meeting, told the Dhaka Tribune: “There are some technical problems in approving the Dhaka-New York flights…the Biman MD had made the declaration in this regard before settling those issues.”
Steele, however, said: “The board has simply asked for some more information on the leases. So, they have neither approved nor rejected [the plan].”
Resuming Biman flights to New York was an election pledge of the Awami League and although it tried hard in the past couple of years to achieve that target, it failed.
Requesting not to be named, the Biman director said: “As it is an election pledge of the government, we are not against resuming the flights, but we must go through the regulation.”
When asked about his early declaration about the flight resumption, MD Kevin Steele avoided a reply, but he said Biman would lease two aircraft from Egypt for five years to resume the Dhaka-NY flights, subject to the board’s approval.
He said the first aircraft would arrive in February and the other in March.
Biman’s New York flights were grounded in 2006.
A source in Biman’s marketing division said the Biman MD had a plan to start selling tickets for the New York flights from January 31, but that might be delayed now.
Biman had got approval for two flights a week on the Dhaka-NY route, which remained suspended because of financial losses and serious shortage of aircraft. Biman plans to have a stopover in Birmingham.
Now a losing concern, Biman recently requested the government to allow it a commercial borrowing of $200m to help overcome the financial crisis before the fleet lands.
