Noman Mosharef :
Biman Bangladesh Airlines has suffered more than Tk 100 crore losses as deadly coronavirus pandemic hit the aviation sector severely across the world.
Besides, the country’s private airlines companies have lost 50 per cent revenue income due to the flight suspending during the coronavirus.
Against the backdrop, local airliners are facing huge challenges to maintain their operation with ballooning losses. The local airliners are now focusing on the domestic flight operation to minimize losses, insiders said. Officials said Biman had incurred Tk 80 crore losses in 2019. But it counted Tk 174 crore in July to November in 2020. As a result, the national flag carrier could not able to continue flight operation in Japan, Canada, Australia, Sri Lanka, China, and Maldives.
Md Mokabbir Hossain, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Biman Bangladesh said, “The capacity loss of the national flag carrier stood at Tk 1,600 up to November last year. “We could have been prevented operational loss in November and came to a break-even point. But the current pandemic situation suggests that the operational loss will go up again.”
He also admits that Biman Bangladesh got govt. stimulus package.
Private airlines company US-Bangla claims that they have lost 50 per cent revenue income last year.
“We used to operate ninety plus flights in a week before pandemic. But it now comes down to 40 and the lower flights causes huge operational losses for our airliners,” Kamrul Islam, PRO of US-Bangla Airlines told media.
Officials of Novo Air said the Airliner has reached on the edge in domestic flights in November-December last year. But the airliner again scales down its flight operation due to detection of new coronavirus variants in many countries around the world. Novo Air faces a renewed financial crisis following the development.
Regent Air, another private sector airline company, could not able to resume their flight operation since cancel in March.
