State flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines has said its Dhaka-Toronto flight will make an hour stopover in Istanbul during the journey from Dhaka due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war but will return directly.
Biman managing director and chief execute officer Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal at a view-exchange programme on Wednesday, however, said that its plan to launch three weekly flights on the route from June 28 might defer.
At the programme at its training centre near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, the Biman CEO said that the base price for a single trip on the route would start from $650 but did not elaborate how the airlines would make the route commercially viable.
The CEO added that they were yet to start selling tickets for flights on the route due to a lack of a business deal.
Biman officials insisted that Biman’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner would make a stopover at Istanbul on its way to Toronto until the Russia-Ukraine war ended.
Biman inaugurated direct flights on the Dhaka-Toronto route on March 26.
The Biman CEO said that they inaugurated the flight in March to ‘bolster image.’
‘We put all focus on the flight,’ he said.
He informed reporters that they would operate the Dhaka-Male direct flight on completion of Hajj operations this year.
Biman will operate 65 Hajj flights from Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet to and from Saudi Arabian cities starting from June 5.
‘We will operate with our own aircraft,’ he said, adding that they feared trouble in pilgrims’ management in Saudi Arabia due to the unavailability of visas.
‘We are in touch with our embassy, and Saudi officials to solve the crisis,’ said the Biman CEO.
Biman’s chief financial officer Md Naoshad Hossain said they hope they would not suffer any loss in Hajj flights despite a 50 per cent rise in global petroleum prices.
Biman was also working to operate flights on Dhaka-Chennai, Dhaka-Manama, and Dhaka-Narita routes, officials said.
The CEO admitted they were struggling to minimise the involvement of their employees in gold smuggling and other unprofessional activities, adding that in 2021 the state carrier suspended at least 13 employees for their suspected role in gold smuggling.
‘We are trying to motivate our employees and are exploring their best qualities,’ he said, adding that the development of physical infrastructure is also underway to bring more transparency in its operation.
Biman’s director for customer services Md Siddiqur Rahman said that they were trying to improve customer services by speeding up the luggage delivery on the arrival of passenger flights from 20 international destinations and 29 other international operators.
He said that the lack of physical infrastructures at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport also hampered their services to the public.
Siddiqur said that the luggage services got badly affected when more than eight flights land at a time with the airport having only eight luggage belts.
The passengers also face trouble when more than eight flights started boarding the passengers with the terminals having only eight boarding bridges.
He said that sometimes they need to use buses to manage their passengers on arrival or departure.
Biman’s director (administrations and human resources) and (marketing and sales) Md Zahid Hossain, director (flight operations) captain Md Siddiqur Rahman, director (engineering and material management) Air Commodore Mridha Md. Ekramuzzaman, and director (corporate planning and training) Air Commodore Md Mahbub Jahan Khan, among others, spoke in the programme.
