It’s no big secret that our national flag carrier Biman has been a hot mess ever since the inception of Bangladesh itself. While the nation has progressed leaps and bounds over the last 50 years, Biman is still struggling with the fundamentals of being an airline.
The recent vow made by the newest Biman chief of making the airline not only profitable but targeting a $1 billion turnover is ambitious, to say the least, especially in light of the company reporting continuous losses over the past few years -- over the past 15 years, Biman incurred its biggest loss of Tk594 crore in FY12 while it counted profits in FY09.
Needless to say, the new chief’s promises ring hollow.
What is perhaps worse is that the government keeps pumping money into Biman despite its proven record of being a loss-making entity. But losses are just one component of what makes Biman such a failure.
The company’s biggest offense is its absolute incompetence in maintaining even the most basic of standards when it comes to customer service. Despite being in the business for 50 years, a multitude of issues still plague Biman, including ticketing mismanagement, poor passenger service, lack of flight schedule and fleet planning, and inefficient human resource management.
A Biman flight was even stranded in Kolkata for three hours due to technical errors last month.
And to say nothing of the airline’s storied reputation for housing corrupt officials, with former managing director and chief executive AM Mosaddique Ahmed being relieved of his duties due to complaints of irregularities in the appointment of pilots along with allegations of a lack of transparency, all of which have led to Biman turning into a revolving door for senior management.
There is only one solution that can correct Biman’s course at this point: Swift privatization.
The administration should put Biman into the private sector without delay, as tax-payer funds would be much better spent on improving airport infrastructure, flight engineering, and training facilities to make Bangladesh an attractive hub for air travel.
