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All is not well at the aviation front. The World Air Transport Summit in Istanbul, held recently, has a forecast of US $ 6.1 billion loss in aviation sector globally this year as spiraling fuel costs wipe out earnings. Oil prices rose to 42 percent in last six months and over 150 in last couple of years: in 2006 it was US $ 40 a barrel and now it is close to US $ 150 a barrel. This has sent shock waves into the whole aviation system. The bolt from the blue came just when the industry had a yield of US $ 5.6 billion profit and witnessed a 7.4 percent growth in passenger traffic in 2007, the first since the 9/11.
Against this backdrop we decided to bring the aviation industry of Bangladesh under focus in our special story and find out how the industry is going cope up with the difficult times ahead.
The most experienced airlines in our aviation landscape is our national carrier, Biman. Burdened with a huge army of employees and rampant corruption, the national flag carrier is perennially sick. Biman’s corruption stories have made headlines in the national newspapers and have been subject of scathing Op-Eds.
Are the local private airlines doing any better than its national counterpart? Our reports say there is practically nothing to sing about. GMG the oldest and most efficient private sector airliner has slashed four out of six international routes. The reason being rising operation cost. Most recently they have discontinued their Dhaka-Dubai-Dhaka flight when Emirates has just doubled their flight numbers in the same route.
BestAir, the new entrant in the domestic scene, launched their operation in style, but folded quickly to venture out for international routes. They fly Bangkok and have last week added Colombo and Male to their route map. It is too early to say anything about their future.
There are a couple of airlines, Aviana and Albab Anmole, who are expected to operate in the domestic routes.
One thing that is pretty clear from our experience of the local aviation industry over the years is domestic routes are not going to attract greater flow of passenger traffic unless the air tickets are cheap. This is a far cry because the air tickets are heavily taxed. The airlines also have to be innovative and try budget airlines concept in the domestic routes.
For the sick Biman there is good news at last. A US $ 2.5 billion deal has been signed with Boeing to resurrect the airline from its deathbed. True that Biman since its inception had to make do with old, and discarded others, aircrafts, but is that all? What about the people who have are responsible for the airlines illness? They are still there and will be looking after the new aircrafts due to join the fleet in 2013. And most importantly there will be vested political interest to eat the vitals of the national airliner. How to save Biman?
We at ICE agree with the aviation experts who are in favour of handing over the management to a foreign management. After all we want to fly with our national carrier and feel proud about it.
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