Bangladeshi Expat starts Britain's first Sharia compliant airline - Firnas Airways

[padamchen]

I'm not into depressants as much, though I have tried it in some parties. Bong hits are a reasonable experience.
And the stuff that people get from Kerala almost paralyses me.
Hash is okay.


I should have gone for the fish maybe.
I have tried the food at a restaurant called tiranga. Have also tried the Donne biryani. Would look for good local joints.
Beef and mutton are great in Delhi. Let's see where Pune stands.

Btw, if you like spicy food, you have to try the Hyderabadi biryani at Meghana restaurant in Bangalore. Probably the best in the country.

Yup Tiranga is a well known Maharashtrian biryani joint (as in, non-Muslim).

Cheers, Doc

 

[takeiteasy]

They will all support Shria airlines, but at the last moment will look for the cheapest flight. SA mentality, may not be true for first world.

 

[bluesky]

So do they plan to enforce dress codes on passengers?

Is it also possible that he will ask the passengers to do Khatna before riding his plane?

 

[bête noire]

Is it also possible that he will ask the passengers to do Khatna before riding his plane?

 

[fallstuff]

Guys - couldn't we discuss this OT discussions somewhere else? Charas, Ganja, Afeem, Beef and other contrabands?

How is Beef contraband ?

This land ain't India yet !!

 

[Imran Khan]

Is it also possible that he will ask the passengers to do Khatna before riding his plane?

and he will check it before flight .

 

[Bilal9]

How is Beef contraband ?

This land ain't India yet !!

I meant for Vegetarian Indians - they were discussing contrabands in India above (which in a sense includes beef) but this is OT subject for this thread.....

 

[my2cents]

religious business it to wide one cn earn so much until stupids are alive . next sharia pub and night clubs

Are you trying to say that as long as religious nuts are alive there is room to make lots of money. I agree. You should see some of religious gurus in our country. Baba Ramdev, Rajneesh, Sri Sri, Sadguru are just a few who have millions of followers.

 

[fitpOsitive]

 

[Imran Khan]

Are you trying to say that as long as religious nuts are alive there is room to make lots of money. I agree. You should see some of religious gurus in our country. Baba Ramdev, Rajneesh, Sri Sri, Sadguru are just a few who have millions of followers.

yeah same here so many of them sucking blood pf public on the name of religion

 

[fitpOsitive]

yeah same here so many of them sucking blood pf public on the name of religion

While everybody else is pumping blood. Sir, net result is same.

 

[HariPrasad]

By George Harrison

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/641264...uslim-airline/

http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewt...9319819692e9f6

Kazi Shafiqur Rahman, a man who calls himself the "halal Richard Branson", also wants modest dress for his female staff and Islamic in-flight meals as part of a bid launch Britain's first "Sharia-compliant" airline.

Kazi Rahman is behind the UK's first Sharia-compliant airline, Firnas Airways

"Sharia compliance" means following a set of traditional Islamic rules for how to live your life, and it forbids Muslims from eating and drinking certain things, and dressing provocatively. There are a handful of Sharia compliant airlines elsewhere in the world, but 32-year-old Kazi's Firnas Airways will be the first in Britain. His story is now going to be told in How To Start An Airline, a new documentary following the Bangladeshi-born entrepreneur as he tries to get his small-fry company off the ground.

"There's a huge communication issue when it comes to Islam, Sharia, halal and things like this," Kazi, a practising Muslim and a dad of one, told Sun Online.

Kazi is a retail entrepreneur with big dreams of breaking into the aviation business

"But as an entrepreneur I feel passionate about it and it's also my faith.

"If I was going to do something then why would I do something I don't agree with or believe in?"

From loo cleaner to perfume guru

Kazi, a lovable if wide-eyed character from London's East End, came to Britain with his family in 1997, when he was just 11. After leaving school with one GCSE, his first job was as a toilet cleaner at London City airport, and he's had his head in the clouds ever since.

"On the interview I turned up wearing a suit," he says in the documentary. "That's how serious I was about getting that job."

Kazi then found business success after launching perfume company Sunnamusk, but for the past two and a half years, he's been focused on his real dream: starting an airline. Breaking into the airline business is a monumental challenge for anyone, but Kazi has no industry experience at all - and he's dead set on keeping to his religious morals.

Firnas Airways is currently leasing one plane, a 19-seater designed for commuter hops

Getting a Sharia airline off the ground

Kazi's chief adviser, veteran aviation consultant John Brayford, has been concerned about the feasibility of Kazi's Sharia business plan from the start.

"If you look at the airlines around the world that don't serve alcohol, there's not one of them which can be considered successful," John says.

But Kazi was always reluctant to budge on his principles, even when he attracted a barrage of hateful online comments from Islamophobic trolls who made jibes about "kamikaze pilots" and making stopovers in Islamic State territory. However, he has recently decided that his controversial Sharia angle has turned into a PR headache - so he's started to tone it down a bit while courting passengers and investors.

Experienced aviation consultant John Brayford has been advising inexperienced Kazi on his journey to make it big

The entrepreneur told Sun Online: "When you say Sharia compliance, people will take it as Sharia enforcement, which isn't the case.

"But we're trying to position ourselves to Islamic investors. There's obviously the halal food and then modest dressing - I don't believe in exploiting women to get more business.

"There will be no alcohol but we will try to use substitutes."

In the doc, Kazi goes plane shopping with his friend and business partner Abdul - a fellow aviation enthusiast

A turbulent start

The under-experienced and overenthusiastic businessman dreams of flying long-haul to the Middle East, but first he needs to establish some short-haul routes to make a name for his airline and earn some money.

In the documentary, we follow Kazi as he opens negotiations to fly out of London's Ashford Airport and Waterford Airport in Ireland. Normally, airlines pay airports a fee in return for being allowed to fly from them, but wheeler-dealer Kazi was audacious enough to demand that the airports should be paying Firnas.

Marketing his airline as Sharia compliant eventually turned into a headache for Kazi

Kazi signed a lease on a £60,000-a-month turboprop aircraft without having anywhere to fly it

With this unorthodox request, Kazi gets a firm "no" and negotiations collapse, forcing his ego to make an emergency landing. But it turns out that Kazi, banking on his negotiations going well, had already signed a £60,000-a-month lease on a 72-seater turboprop plane, egged on by business partner and fellow Bangladeshi Abdul Roqueb.

Kazi's unorthodox negotiating style and inexperience meant he missed out on landing the big contracts

Money down the toilet

He may be used to cleaning toilets, but Kazi had never been in it that deep before. The would-be airline boss was paying thousands for his plane to sit on the tarmac, with nowhere to fly it and his credibility in tatters.

Still haemorrhaging money, Kazi cancelled the lease on his pricey 72-seater and returned to the drawing board, where he decided that flying short commuter hops are his only hope if he wants to break into the notoriously change-averse airline business.

With nothing to show for two years' work, it was time to go plane shopping again - but this time Kazi had to dial down his enthusiasm, and act a bit less like a kid in a sweet shop.

Kazi's first attempt at leasing a plane nearly ended in ruin, so he has to dial down his enthusiasm next time

On the show, we see him poking around a much smaller 19-seater Jetstream plane - a sturdy little craft but a world away from the long-haul Dreamliner Kazi wants to see in Firnas colours. He's clearly underwhelmed by the tired-looking upholstery and creaking seats, and he knows that his hopes of flying to the Middle East couldn't be further away.

"That hole there," says Kazi to the plane's pilot and owner, as he inspects the wing. "Is that meant to be there?"

Raging at his team, Kazi adds: "This is not the plan. Every decision we make we have to go right back to the bottom. It's going on and on and costing me money every day."

But he has no choice. If he wants to start an airline, he has to start small - and in this business, the Jetstream, at a cost of £8,500 a month, is as small as it gets.

Kazi settles on a sturdy little 19-seater to be the first plane in the Firnas fleet

Ready for take-off

Today, it finally looks as if Firnas' first aircraft is ready to fly - and Kazi's journey from plane cleaner to plane owner is complete. Kazi has raised around £500,000, money which will be used to lease planes and cover the many costs of getting set up.

His nifty little Jetstream plane has been painted in a fetching shade of Firnas purple, and is ready to be sent on short commuter runs between UK cities. And despite the online backlash, Kazi is still committed to filling the gap in the market for an Islamic airline.

"It's about brand positioning - it's about being different and sticking out from the crowd," a chirpy Kazi tells us.

"We want to be a premium airline. Not your low-cost Easyjet or Ryanair."

Kazi is optimistic that his Sharia airline will be off the ground soon

Kazi is optimistic that his Sharia airline will be off the ground soon

Firnas is now just months away from operating its first commercial charter flights, as soon as all the regulatory hurdles have been cleared. From then, Kazi estimates, long-haul flights should be just two or three years down the line.

"What we're doing will be a game changer," he insists.

It may well be, but don't hold your breath for that celebratory glass of bubbly when Firnas Airways finally does take off - you won't be allowed to drink it anyway.

Firnas Airways - How To Start an Airline airs at 10.30pm on Channel 4 on Wednesday 13/06/2018.

The guys in picture are wearing Kafirs' dress. They should wear gown like arab. I hope air Hostess will wear Burkas and Halal meat shall be served.

 

[Bilal9]

The guys in picture are wearing Kafirs' dress. They should wear gown like arab. I hope air Hostess will wear Burkas and Halal meat shall be served.

If all Muslim males are required to wear Arab religious garb like 'dishdasha' (gown) then by that logic all Hindu males should wear Dhoti, Tilak and Sindoor and nothing on top except the sacred Brahmin thread. None of which is relevant in real life.

Religion of Islam has little to do with regional Arab dress which is an expression of culture vis-a-vis religion - the idea is being an observant 'decent' Muslim, not turn yourself into an Arab. That concept is lost on fanatical Hindus.

What most people (non-Muslims especially) don't get is that hijab is not enforced on women especially overseas, they choose it themselves to discourage undesired sexual (Male) attention to themselves. It is an idea that Muslimah choose for themselves, for their own comfort. The requirement that hair or arms cannot be seen for women can be translated to any mode of dress.

That 'decency' mentioned above can manifest itself in any type of dress (even shirts, trousers, jeans and a jacket) as shown in the video above).

But enough with the analysis. You were just mildly trolling - right?

 

[HariPrasad]

If all Muslim males are required to wear Arab religious garb like 'dishdasha' (gown) then by that logic all Hindu males should wear Dhoti, Tilak and Sindoor and nothing on top except the sacred Brahmin thread. None of which is relevant in real life.

Religion of Islam has little to do with regional Arab dress which is an expression of culture vis-a-vis religion - the idea is being an observant 'decent' Muslim, not turn yourself into an Arab. That concept is lost on fanatical Hindus.

What most people (non-Muslims especially) don't get is that hijab is not enforced on women especially overseas, they choose it themselves to discourage undesired sexual (Male) attention to themselves. It is an idea that Muslimah choose for themselves, for their own comfort. The requirement that hair or arms cannot be seen for women can be translated to any mode of dress.

That 'decency' mentioned above can manifest itself in any type of dress (even shirts, trousers, jeans and a jacket) as shown in the video above).

But enough with the analysis. You were just mildly trolling - right?

I am not saying what a Muslim wear or not but when you start a sharia airline, it should be sharia compllied else how would you diferentiate between sharia and non-sharia airlines?

 

[Bilal9]

I am not saying what a Muslim wear or not but when you start a sharia airline, it should be sharia compllied else how would you diferentiate between sharia and non-sharia airlines?

Sharia compliant means the 'airline' is sharia compliant. 'Passengers' can be but not required and not essential.