Biman to relaunch direct flight to Manchester from January next year
Biman Bangladesh Airlines is set to relaunch a direct flight from Dhaka to Manchester, a major city in the UK, from January 4 next year
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The national carrier is running four weekly flights to London from Dhaka. With the introduction of Dhaka-Manchester flights thrice a week, Biman will operate flights to the UK every day of the week
TBS Report
Biman Bangladesh Airlines is set to relaunch a direct flight from Dhaka to Manchester, a major city in the UK, from January 4 next year.
Currently, the national carrier runs four weekly flights to London's Heathrow airport from Dhaka. The Biman flights have been running full, carrying 1,676 passengers to London every week.
With the introduction of Dhaka-Manchester-Sylhet-Dhaka flights thrice a week, Biman will operate flights to the UK every day of the week.
Earlier, Biman served Manchester until October 2012.
Md Mokabbir Hossain, managing director of Biman, has confirmed the date of relaunch of flights between Dhaka and Manchester.
The national carrier has also decided to start Dhaka-Medina flights from October 28, he said.
The inclusion of four new Dreamliner aircraft prompted Biman to extend flights to Manchester, said a senior executive of the national carrier.
The Dhaka-London flights started to make a profit since December last year after the aviation ministry moved to an automated ticket reservation system in a bid to stop corruption. Despite having a huge demand, Biman was running London flights empty until November last year.
But full automation system in ticket booking increased the number of passengers to a large extent. As a result, the Dhaka-London route turned out to be profitable for Biman, prompting the national carrier to go for route extension in the UK, said the senior Biman executive.
He said Biman has more route extension plans as three more Dash-8 planes will be added to its fleet.
Currently, Biman is operating flights to 23 destinations with a fleet of 16 aircraft.