A few days ago I was purchasing tickets for my Middle East visit from the Biman Bangladesh Airlines office, and while the officials, for unknown reasons, took an embarrassingly long time to produce the tickets, fumbling with their antediluvian machines, I took the opportunity to befriend a charming and amicable officer there.
While we chatted on disparate topics, as is the nature of citizens of a modern world, we could not resist the temptation of plunging in to politics and before we knew, we were talking about the presence of corruption in Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
My friend, a veteran Biman employee himself, having spent about two thirds of his career serving at this organisation, shook his head in utter dejection and poured down a cogent, candid and sententious analysis of Biman’s continuous failure to become a profit-making airline.
One must confess that he hardly said anything we do not know already as the stories of corruption in Bangladesh have a peculiar commonality; we seem to possess the mortifying and puerile weakness of being hoodwinked by impostors, who cheat us over and over again, using the same methods.
Not very dissimilar to the case of Bangladesh Railway, Biman’s sufferings are caused by exploitations of unscrupulous people.
It is important to understand the mechanism of exploitation, since many of us may be consciously aware of corruption but do not understand exactly how money is siphoned out.
In the case of any organisation the only way profit can be made is by ensuring that the expenditures are never greater than the earnings, a principle comprehended well by all businessmen.
So if you are facing a loss, it means the influx of money in your business is weak compared to the operating cost of the organisation. So there are two different possibilities that can explain Biman’s pathetic financial records over the past years.
The first is that the income of the organisation has fallen somehow, or the expenditures have overwhelmed the income; according to the observation of my friend, it is the second of the two in the case of our national carrier.
The demand for Biman’s services has not really decreased, despite being of notoriously poor quality; therefore, there is little chance that the actual sales volume has shrunk substantially enough to affect the inflow of money.
On the other hand, fuel prices have increased significantly, producing a pronounced effect on expenditure. It would not be redundant to mention here that fuel price is a fundamentally important factor for any airliner from the point of view of operating cost.
Almost all airliners, with few exceptions, have witnessed a fall in their profits since oil prices shot up in the last decade. It also must be considered that Biman has adjusted fares accordingly, following the example of other international airliners. What this friend of mine, who must remain anonymous, opined is that a lot of money is “drained” in the name of fuel purchase.
He did not clarify exactly how this happens but it is possible that fuel is purchased at a higher price to favour a certain supplier or more than required amount is demanded and falsely shown to have been received.
Indeed, since the majority of the Biman fleet is comprised of dilapidated airplanes and that inefficient engines consume fuel at a higher rate, it opens doors of opportunities for the unscrupulous among Biman employees.
And then there is maintenance cost. There is nothing clandestine about how thieving occurs in the name of repair and replacement of the airplanes.
Something that is worth a thousand dollars may be shown to have cost ten thousand, making it difficult for the airliner to ever see profit. Indeed, it is quite easy for an inspecting engineer to convince his or her superior that some engines need repair or overhauling, simply by expressing dissatisfaction about their performance.
If a part is bought, an inauspicious nexus between the supplier and the immoral Biman employee can ensure that an inappropriately high price is paid for it. All these different methods of systematic thieving have weakened Biman to such an extent that it may “crash” in the near future if curbing measures are not taken immediately.
Appointing Kevin Steele as the managing director and chief executive officer of the organisation was a commendable step in the sense that it shows the government indeed is sincere about restoring Biman’s lost glory.
If this vastly experienced man is allowed to work independently and without influence for the benefit of the organisation, one would hope that it would start to generate revenue with ease closing all the “leaks” that drain the national flag carrier.
Now that we have a proficient pilot at work, let us then be optimistic and hope that Biman can avoid a crash landing, shall we?
