Biman Bangladesh Airlines will launch direct flights to the Myanmar capital of Yangon from Dhaka with its own Boeing 737-800 on December 9.
‘Biman will operate two flights a week to Yangon from December 9 following the air service agreement between the Civil Aviation Authorities of Bangladesh and Myanmar,’ Biman CEO and managing director Kevin Steel told journalists at a press conference at Balaka, its headquarters.
He said Biman would resume its domestic flights by end December or early January after procuring two turboprops. As per the earlier commitment Biman is supposed to resume domestic flights by this month.
‘Unfortunately, we have still not procured the two turboprop aircraft despite issuance of three RFPs (Request for Proposal). The last RFP did show three responsive bidders, so we are now hopeful that this can be finally resolved and we can launch domestic flights by early January,’ he said.
After procuring the two turboprops, Kevin said the airlines would deploy these small aircraft on Dhaka-Yangon route to make the air fare cheap.
The Biman chief said unaudited results indicate a loss of around $25 million in 2012-13 fiscal year, which was around $75 million in 2011-12 FY.
‘The trend shows that we will be able to make Biman profitable in 2014-15 fiscal as per our promise made to prime minister Sheikh Hasina,’ he said.
Kevin said the national flag carrier had made a profit of around Tk 40 crore in September thanks to Hajj flights.
From the next year, he said Biman would not lease any aircraft for operating Hajj flights.
‘Before April, we will receive two more brand new wide- body Boeings and with those we will be able to operate entire Hajj flights,’ he said. (source)