The New Nation - Internet Edition

The sudden rise in jet fuel price is likely to hit the country's grooming aviation industry, as the airliners apprehend to lose passengers with further rise in tariff.

The government increased the jet fuel price from Tk 75 to Tk 95 per litre on June 3.

"Obviously, the growth will be hampered, we might lose passengers as we've already increased our fares on different destinations," Best Air Chairman M Haideruzzaman told UNB Saturday.

He said after the jet fuel price hike on June 3, Best Air re-fixed its one-way fare on its Dhaka-Chittagong route at Tk 5,495.

"We don't have no option but to raise the fare, as the fuel price is the half of an airliner's total operational cost," he said. He said the local airliners would face more difficulties in carrying international passengers from Bangladesh due to this fuel price hike.

"The Thai Air refills fuel from its own homeland where the fuel price is almost 35 per cent lower than in Bangladesh," Haider said adding, "This is just an example. Other foreign airliners also refill fuel from their respective countries. So, we're sure to lose our competitiveness."

Painting a gloomy picture of the global aviation sector due to fuel oil price hike, Biman Managing Director MA Momen said in the last five and a half months about 24 airlines have faced closure, as they could not cope with the shooting-up price of jet fuel.

"In the recent IATA conference, we saw the shadow of a dark cloud just for the uptrend in the jet-fuel prices, many officials were apprehending whether they would be able to attend the next conference or not," the Biman boss said.

Momen said the jet-fuel price hike has made the country's aviation business very vulnerable.

The GMG Airlines is the worst affected operator as they have already put on hold its process to take two MD 80-3 aircraft on lease to strengthen its fleet.

"We've been compelled to roll back the process following the recent increase in the jet fuel price. We were almost close to taking two aircraft under dry lease system," GMG Airlines Chairman Abdus Sattar Nini told the news agency.

He said his organisation would go for extreme cost minimisation after the jet fuel price hike.