The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The board of directors of Bangladesh Biman Airlines Limited meeting Monday night failed to arrive at any decision for purchase of aircraft for the national flag carrier.

Sources close to the marathon meeting said starting at 7pm it continued till the midnight before adjourned to meet again on Sunday.

The fleet committee constituted to review the purchase proposal submitted its proposal to the Biman management.

Biman, which has only 11 old aircraft in its fleet, has taken a move to procure more aircraft after its transformation into 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.

Sources confirmed that the fleet committee has given a long-term proposal to make Biman well operational and profitable. It proposed for buying 8 aircraft - four for long routes and four for medium routes. Two more may be procured for short routes, if feasible.

Bedeviled by shortage of aircraft Biman can hardly operate flights to 18 countries although it has Air Service Agreement (ASA) with 42 countries.

The aging airliners get frequently grounded for technical reasons disrupting the flight schedule, thus chipping away its market share.

The board is likely to look into the proposal of IFC, a wing of the World Bank, for conducting study on Biman that will cost US$ 2 million.

The 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.