Boeing renews offers to modernise Biman fleet

American aircraft maker Boeing has renewed an offer to modernise Biman’s age-old fleet by providing the ailing national carrier with eight new generation planes, a top airline official said Tuesday. The Chicago company can supply four B-777 and B-787 Dreamliner between 2013 and 2017 at a price of around $1.8 billion should Biman place the order by March 15, chief executive of the airlines, MA Momen, said. Airlines officials said Biman is ready to place the order as Boeing has said it would arrange funding from the US Exim Bank. The company would be supplying the commercial planes in two phases-the first one in 2013 and the second in 2017, they added The board of Biman had earlier agreed in principle to place the order for the planes after Boeing sent a price quotation, asking the Bangladeshi carrier to respond by January 15. Of the eight aircraft, Boeing has proposed that it would supply four aircraft by 2013 if both parties agreed on a deal. An aviation expert calculated the value of the order in the territory of US$1.8-$2.0 billion, analysing the Boeing’s catalogue prices.

 

At present, Biman owns three types of aircraft — four DC10-30s, four F-28s, and three A310-300s. Among them, DC10-30s are aged over 28 years. The airline authority stopped flying the F-28s after they proved to be fuel inefficient and too costly to maintain.

Bangladesh’s fourth Airline launches its domestic operation

Best Air, the fourth Bangladeshi Airliner, started operation of the country’s largest passenger carrier on the Dhaka-Chittagong-Dhaka route on Monday.
In the inaugural flight, a wide-bodied Boeing B-737 carried 118 passengers from Zia International Airport in Dhaka to Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong.
The airline will operate four flights — two from Dhaka and two from Chittagong — everyday. The time for the flight from Dhaka is 8:00am and 7:00pm and from Chittagong 9:30am and 8:30pm. One-way airfare has been fixed at Tk 3,900.
‘We will offer the best services to the domestic air passengers,’ said M Haider Uzzaman, chairman of Best Air.
Escort services for passengers, individual choice of meals in flights, are among the unique offers of Best Air.
It has also arranged a computerised ticket booking network, from where the passengers will be able to collect their tickets instantly.
Haider informed journalists that Sylhet would be their second domestic destination from early February and operations on the international routes were expected at end of that month.
‘We have received authorisation of the Bangladesh government as its designated airline to operate flights on the international routes,’ he said.
Kolkata, Chennai, Kung Ming and Bangkok are the planned international destinations at the first phase.
The airline has also plans to operate flights to destinations in Middle East and other parts in the world.
At present, Best Air has one Boeing 737-200 aircraft but it has booked one more from Boeing and two from Airbus to serve its international operations.

Source: Newage