The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The board of directors of Bangladesh Biman Airlines Limited will decide the purchase of aircraft in its meeting On Monday for profitable run of the resurrected national flag carrier.

Meanwhile, the fleet committee constituted to review the purchase proposal submitted its proposal on Sunday to the Biman management.

A competent source on the fleet committee told UNB that they had done the financial analysis and calculation.

The panel on Saturday had a marathon discussion on their draft proposal with the Biman officials concerned and finalized the proposal. The board will discuss that final proposal in Monday's board meeting.

Biman, which has only 11 old aircraft in its fleet, has taken a move to procure more airplanes after its transformation into a public limited company on July 23 last year. The re-born Biman took off on August 1.

While it remains a 100-percent state-owned company, the PLC entity allows Biman's Board of Directors to make its own decisions, including procurement of new aircraft.

The airliners get frequently grounded for technical reasons due to its aging fleet, which has only old-generation aircraft, aged between 17 and 29 years, except two. Such nosedive of planes is wreaking havoc on its flight schedule, chipping away at its market share. Biman presently owns three types of aircraft-four DC10-30s, four F-28s, and three A310-300s. Production of DC10-30s and F-28s has been discontinued because of their lack of viability in business. Out of the four DC10-30s, three are 29 years old while the other is 17-year old, the four F-28s are 31 years old, and two of the A310-300s are 11 years old while the other is 7- year old. Sources confirmed that the fleet committee has given a long-term proposal that is about 22 years long.

"It is not possible for us to procure and make the Biman a profitable concern like the world's renowned airliners at this moment, that's why we gave 22 years' proposal," said one fleet-committee member. Reliable sources from Biman said that the fleet committee proposed to buy at least ten new-generation aircraft right now to run the airliner smoothly on its existing routes.

Hamstrung with shortage of aircraft, Biman now can operate flights to 18 countries although it has Air Service Agreement (ASA) with 42 countries.

The board would likely to discuss the procurement policy for Biman. As per the government rule, the government organisation will have to follow the Public Procurement Regulation (PPR). When made into a company, such a government undertaking can formulate their own procurement rules and regulations.

A committee of Biman has already formulated their 100-page procurement rules and regulations and submitted to the management. The procurement rules would be discussed at the board meeting. Besides, the board meeting is likely to look into the proposal of IFC, a wing of the World Bank, for conducting a study on Biman. The IFC proposed to the government to conduct the study at a cost of US$ 2 million to find ways of making the aviation industry profitable. But the IFC in their proposal said that Biman would not have to provide the money as the World Bank window will collect the funds from donors.

Citi Bank NA couple of years back had conducted such study on Biman and given some proposals on bailout of the national airline, which was pushed into a tailspin through wanton corruption and mismanagement.

"But those proposals could not be implemented for reasons not known," said a high official of the Biman.

The caretaker government on February 24 reconstituted the Biman board of directors, appointing Mahbub Jamil, special assistant to chief adviser on civil aviation and tourism, as its head. On Monday board meeting will be a second one of the reconstituted board.