Biman back to bad reputation for flight delay

With its biggest ever fleet, Biman Bangladesh Airlines is now facing more difficulties in operating flights on time as a long pause in training activities has left a good number of its pilots ineligible to fly.

The national flag carrier that started to beat the global benchmark standard in on-time performance in 2019 is now facing serious schedule disruptions because of the shortage of pilots – returning to its previous bad reputation for flight delay.

Long 7-8 hours of delay in the cases of some recent Biman flights bound to Middle East countries and London raised concerns, prompting the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism to conduct an inquiry into the flight delay issue.

The inquiry team found that the carrier operated more flights than its pilot capacity, causing schedule disruptions. This was a reflection of mismanagement of the national carrier.

Overstressed pilots were refusing to operate flights, causing flight delays, according to ministry officials.

From September 2019, Biman's on-time performance improved to over 90% from the previous 50%, while the international average is 80%.

On-time performance is measured by flights' arrival or departure within 15 minutes of schedule.

However, this excellent on-time performance of Biman did not last long. After the Covid-19 pandemic had hit the aviation industry, Biman went back to its previous bad practice of delaying flight.

Speaking to pilots, The Business Standard has come to know that some of them flew more than 90 hours a month, while, according to an agreement of the Bangladesh Airline Pilots' Association (Bapa) with Biman, they are supposed to fly 75 hours a month.

Even though Biman has 143 regular pilots, all of them are not eligible to fly as they have not received training that is required after a certain period to keep an aviator in operation.

Biman put its regular training activities on the back burner for the past one and a half years, making regular pilots ineligible to fly that caused the vacuum.

When in-house pilot training programmes ran all over the world during the pandemic, Biman kept at least 26 of its pilots without training.

When contacted, Dr Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal, managing director of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, said there were many reasons behind delays in flights. He, however, did not mention any specific reason.

Asked about the suspension of training activities for one and a half years, he said training was provided when necessary, but there might be some gaps due to various issues including Covid and changes in management.

Biman saw a major change in its key posts in the last one year.  Mostafa Kamal joined the carrier in February this year when the aviation ministry got a new secretary, Md Mokammel Hossain, who is also the board member of Biman.

Biman got new management at a time when the aviation industry was in a critical situation amid the pandemic and the carrier has been going through various problems since the new management took office.

For instance, when pilots were resisting overflying, Biman management suddenly fired one senior pilot without showing any ground. They did not even follow the official procedure.

The sudden termination created tension among existing pilots.

Biman authorities on Tuesday terminated Captain Mahbubur Rahman who is also the president of Bapa without showing any reasons.

Moreover, according to the labour law, an elected leader of an association cannot be terminated.

The dismissal letter said Biman MD and CEO Dr Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal had ordered the dismissal of Captain Mahbub as per the power of Article 59 (b) of the Association of Biman Bangladesh Airlines.

According to the government service rule, the accused will be given space to offer explanations for allegations brought against them. If the explanation is not accepted, they can be then terminated.

When contacted, Mahbubr said, "I do not know why I was terminated. I was not asked to give any explanation."

Asked about the issue, Biman MD Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal did not reply.

On the other hand, Biman has issued a notice warning of more terminations.

An office notice issued on 24 November says a decision was made at the board meeting that the managing director of Biman is given power to take action against pilots and cockpit crew who are creating impediment in airline operation.

The pilot crisis prompted Biman to send aviators for training and fresh recruitment.

The airline company has already issued a circular for fresh recruitment of captains and cabin crew for 777 aircraft.

However, the training initiative raised questions as an African training academy was chosen for training pilots.

When the rest of the world is closing borders with African countries over newly detected Omicron variant of Covid-19 virus, Biman has decided to send its eight aviators to take training with Ethiopian Aviation Academy.

The training notice was issued earlier this week.

Moreover, choosing Ethiopian Aviation Academy has raised questions as pilots were previously trained by training academies of British Airlines and Boeing.

The pilot crisis arises as Biman did not recruit and prepare aviators in line with its fleet expansion plan.

In 2010, the carrier took a fleet expansion plan and currently the number of its aircraft stands at 21.