Biman to spread wings in India

Biman Bangladesh yesterday said it was aiming at operating flights to several Indian cities, up from two at present, and adding one more flight to Kolkata from next month.It plans to start double dailies from Kolkata by October-end instead of five flights a week now, to enable business travellers from both sides to do their work and return home the same day.Speaking at a press conference at a hotel in New Delhi, Biman’s MD and CEO Kevin John Steele said the airline was considering expanding frequencies to the Indian capital.It was also planning to launch operations to Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai in the next 18 months, he said.Biman now operates only to Kolkata and New Delhi from Dhaka. Indian cities like Guwahati and Bhubaneshwar were also on its radar for turbo-prop aircraft operations.The airline, which has a fleet of eight-aircraft, is in a major expansion spree planning to enhance it to 18 planes in the next two years, Steele said.It would have 12 planes by March next year, he said, adding it was also “gracefully retiring” four aged DC-10 aircraft, one of which would go to a US aviation museum.The airline, which now has two each of Boeing 777-300s, 737-800s aircraft, Airbus A-310s and DC-10s, would induct more B-777s, apart from having six Boeing 787 Dreamliners on order for deliveries by 2018, Steele said.Biman was also considering using India as a “stop-over” to fly to “under-served” markets like Iraq and Afghanistan, utilising Fifth Freedom rights, he told newsmen.These rights allow an airline to stop in a foreign country, pick up passengers from there and move on to a second country.Steele said his mandate was to turnaround the loss-making airline into a profitable entity by 2014-15 and “we are expecting to break even this fiscal” after making losses of $75 million and $25 million in 2011 and 2012 respectively.Biman hopes to go into profit mode in 2014-15, and the airline was not looking for any financial bailout from the Bangladesh government to overcome its losses and its debt, he said.Biman has had a major problem of providing customer care service in terms of punctuality of its flights.The punctuality was 39 percent last year but this year it has already gone up to 70 percent, he said, adding European airlines’ normal punctuality rate is 75-80 percent.Bangladesh government has agreed to allow Biman to go in for an initial public offer (IPO) after attaining profitability and is providing sovereign guarantee for its aircraft fleet expansion plans.