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Govt under US pressure for guarantee to Biman

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Govt under US pressure for guarantee to Biman

New Age | Newspaper

Shakhawat Hossain

Dhaka is under pressure from Washington to provide Bangladesh Biman with sovereign guarantee to take the delivery of two planes from US aerospace company Boeing, officials said.

The United States has intensified its efforts recently after the government started showing reluctance at giving the guarantee to Biman, which has failed to minimise its losses.

Without the guarantee, Biman cannot meet payment liability for the delivery of the two aircraft in 2014 in line with a deal with Boeing on procuring 10 planes by 2019 at a cost of $1.3 billion.

Biman which took the delivery of two Boeing 777-300ER planes in October and November 2011 struck the deal to make the airlines profitable by replacing its age-old fuel-guzzling planes.

The US ambassador in Dhaka, Dan Mozena, has urged the finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, in a letter on August 5, to ‘expedite the approval process’ of the sovereign guarantee for the national flag carrier’s next two Boeing aircraft delivery.

According to the letter the US ambassador sent, Biman has already missed a number of deadlines ‘for pre-delivery payments for the next two aircraft’ from the manufacturer.

He disclosed that Boeing had been forced to postpone the delivery until April-May 2014 with the new deadline set for October 1, 2012.

Boeing has, moreover, waived $42 million in interest, fees and pricing adjustment that would normally accrue after Biman missed the original deadline, Mozena said.

The latter was seen by New Age.

The Biman officials said that next payment liability is more than $300 million.

They said that Biman needeed the government guarantee without which Boeing would not convince any commercial lender to pay the bill before the aircraft delivery.

Biman got hard-term loans of $277 million from JP Morgan to clear the payment during the first two aircraft delivery in 2011, they added.

Beoing had earlier lobbied the finance ministry on a number of occasions for the sovereign guarantee but failed to convince the ministry.

The finance ministry officials said that Muhith had a meeting on hard-term loan committee members in early July and decided not to issue any guarantee for credit to Biman, which incurred Tk 10 billion losses in the 2011–12 financial year.

It annual looses in the past financial year stood at Tk 1.9 billion and in the 2009–2010 financial year at Tk 410 million.

Mismanagement and inefficiency are attributed for the growing losses of Biman, which spent almost a half of its 40-year of existence making losses.

The civil aviation and tourism minister, Faruk Khan, said that fuel price increase on the international market was another reason for Biman’s staggering losses.

Biman has 12 planes in its fleet, 10 of which are 25 years old. The authorities need to spend a whole lot of money on keeping the old planes fit for flying.

It has failed to maintain flight schedules, which discouraged passengers, he said.
 
Bangldesh Airlines must hand over its operations to a competent private organization, probably a good foreign airlines, in order bring discipline and efficiency in the top to bottom management of this airlines. The present poor management is a drag that keeps this airlines grounded on the tarmac with huge loss each and every year.
 
Biman is such an inefficient and unproductive company, who in their right mind would argue they deserve the most latest toys? But as always, our golden bengali sons have decided to waste 1.3 billion on new toys for this corrupt company, and we, the people, will be paying the price through inflation and taxes and low investment in other sectors.
 
Privatisation is the only way forward for Biman! And also the airport management needs to hand over to another foreign company or the military administration!!
 
Biman, aka beyman, is sh-t. The cabin crew ladies are b-tchy with their ugly uniforms and crayola make up all over their face. They always delay flights, they are ignorant, the ladies are too stuck up their arse and overall Biman is crap. Oh yeah, the food is terrible as well.
 
Biman, aka beyman, is sh-t. The cabin crew ladies are b-tchy with their ugly uniforms and crayola make up all over their face. They always delay flights, they are ignorant, the ladies are too stuck up their arse and overall Biman is crap. Oh yeah, the food is terrible as well.

:partay:you have to be someone or know someone to enjoy biman....:crazy_pilot: i was in the cockpit from dhaka to london
 
Apparently the new 777s are good with great legspace, my parents used it last year. They used it after good reviews from people However given they suffered a 7 hour delay they are planning on not using Birman anymore. I think they had not used Biman in at least two decades and I think it will be further two decades before they contemplate using it again.
 
i used once in my life time and i can assure if i ever to fly biman then it has to be like there is no other way
and biman has to be fully privatized and it must be partner up with other countries and PLEASE STOP LEASING

damn BD government and Biman people are making our country look bad
if we dont have this simple money then why do we need to sign this contract as we know we cannot pay
 
The first time someone use biman to fly is usually the last time s/he uses it :lol:
 
I need to get on a Biman flight to catch a feel of Dhaka. Biman with its litany of disfunctionalities in an ironic way reminds you that you are home !!!

Home sweet home !!


10 aircrafts support a staff of 5000.

Lord have mercy

!!!
 
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