Biman needs restructuring before new move for expansion

BANGLADESH Biman is planning to purchase four aircrafts at a time when the capacity of the existing fleets has remained largely underutilized for lack of long-haul flights and pilots causing huge financial loses every year. The national flag carrier has sought government guarantee against a $136m loan at a high interest rate as a news report said on Wednesday to clear pre-delivery payment for the four aircrafts. The state owned enterprise has been counting losses since fiscal 2009-10; its loss last year alone stood at Tk 199 crore for poor handling of the fleet. In this backdrop, Biman’s plea for sovereign guarantee for the proposed loan from global market appears quite unrealistic to many although nobody would oppose expansion of the fleet to embark upon profiteering business. What many people believe at this moment is that Biman’s management must undergo drastic restructuring to get rid of corrupt, inefficient and demoralized officials to clean it first before putting government guarantee for new loans when its repayment by inefficient Biman’s management may be in trouble.
Why Biman is incurring losses despite addition of new fuel-efficient aircrafts over the last five years is a big question. More than 20 percent of the capacity of its fleet now remains unutilized mainly because the management is failing to open new routes. Operating flights to 22 international destinations Biman is now ranked as one of the worst airlines by aviation watchdogs making it difficult to find new prospective business destinations. Sometimes, shortage of pilots and also shortage of long-haul flights are forcing its Boeings to lay grounded. It is always difficult to get landing rights in world’s busiest airports and Biman’s flight irregularities have made many reluctant to take its request for landing rights seriously.
It is no secret that Biman board’s high-handed attitude and lack of knowledge how to run best a commercial airlines were the main reasons so far behind the failure to make it an efficient and profiteering organization. But their self-seeking attitude, high corruption in buying aircrafts or ticketing and such other misuse of resources have made its nose-dive all the more pronounced. The airports are places where people are miserably harassed and their baggages lost. The Civil Aviation Authorities are beset with corrupt elements all over.
What people believe is that to make Biman an efficient organization there must be change at all level with honest and efficient manpower to run it as a corporate body. Only then Biman can become a profiteering organization.