Biman plans expansion amid pilot shortage, safety concerns rise

Biman Bangladesh Airlines is pursuing an expansion plan despite facing an acute shortage of pilots for the last two years, raising concerns about passenger safety.

With around a 35% shortage of pilots, the national flag carrier is set to commence Dhaka-Rome flights on 26 March, marking the fifth route expansion in the last one and a half years.

The expansion with "overstressed" pilots has been causing various incidents, putting passengers' lives at risk.

In a recent incident, a sick pilot was forced to operate a flight.

On 15 March, a Boeing 777 plane belonging to Biman made an emergency landing at its departure airport after the pilot fell ill midair one hour into the flight to Doha.

Captain Maqsood Ahmed, the pilot-in-command, experienced severe back pain when the plane was flying over Nagpur, India, with 419 passengers on board.

The pilot had emailed his office about his illness a day before his scheduled flight, but it was not received as Biman could not restore its email server since a ransomware cyberattack on 18 March last year, according to insiders.

Biman began using a new email system for internal communication after the hacking incident, and Maqsood Ahmed mistakenly sent the email to the old one.

When Biman sent transport to bring him, he could not decline as the flight schedule had already been fixed. However, upon reaching the office, he verbally informed them about his illness and mentioned that he had also sent an email.

Despite being aware of his condition, various sources within Biman confirmed that he was still assigned to operate the flight.

Eventually, the pilot fell sick midair, and the flight had to return for an emergency landing. He was then taken to the Combined Military Hospital.

"Maqsood could have been stopped from flight operation since there was a standby pilot available, which is a regular practice," said a Biman pilot who wished not to be named. "But the problem lies within Biman's systemic issues, and this is indicative of how the carrier is functioning," he noted, voicing his frustration.

Though there is no official confirmation regarding the correspondence about his illness, an email from the desk of the Chief of Planning and Scheduling to all pilots, obtained by The Business Standard, provides evidence of how Biman is compromising safety.

The email written by Captain Ishtiaque Hossain recently, marking his one year in the post of Chief of Planning and Scheduling, read, "We could not respect the Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), as Biman started four new destinations with the same number of pilots though this office had released 43 of Biman's own pilots in this period as the placement from one fleet to another which is an all-time high (except during induction of any new fleet)."

Though pilots were repeatedly raising their voices about frequently exceeding their duty limits and being often denied their scheduled days off to manage shortages, Biman officially denied this claim.

However, internal correspondence shows the reality.

When asked about the overwork of pilots, Shafiul Azim, managing director of Biman, denied the claim, stating that while it is true there is a severe pilot shortage, the duty limit for pilots is followed in line with international standards.

"I can guarantee that no overstressed pilot is sent to operate a flight, and no pilot can exceed the duty limit."

In response to a supplementary question whether, if it is true, then how could Biman manage to expand new routes with the same number of pilots? He said it is because of dynamic flight scheduling and restructuring pilots from one fleet to another.

However, his statement does not align with the email from the Chief of Planning and Scheduling Desk, which specifically mentioned that they could not maintain FDTL for pilots.

FDTL regulations are laid down by the Civil Aviation Authority in the aviation sector to ensure adequate rest times for pilots and flight attendants, aiming to prevent fatigue-related safety issues.

Biman now moves to hire cadet pilots 

Soon after Azim's joining in December 2022, the national carrier called for applications for pilot recruitment for its three wide-bodied model planes: Boeing 777, 787, and 737, in March last year.

The managing director has already completed one year in his tenure, during which he expanded four international routes, including Guangzhou, Narita, Chennai, and the latest route to Rome, which is set to commence this month.

However, he could not recruit pilots under that circular but expanded routes and frequencies with the same number of pilots in the last year.

Biman has been operating with 186 pilots when the requirement is around 250, meaning it is running short by more than 60 pilots, according to a senior executive of the flight operations department of the carrier.

Wishing not to be named, he cited an example: Biman called for applications to recruit 18 pilots for Boeing 787, but only 16 applications were submitted. After the final interview, only four joined, of whom three left the carrier within one or two months. Now only one foreign pilot remains.

He said that no pilots are interested in working with Biman because the financial package is not competitive.

When asked why Biman could not recruit pilots, Azim said it is not just the financial package; there are other factors at play.

He mentioned that the recruitment process at the airline is very complicated and involves various interests, which is a bigger issue. "Moreover, there are some other reasons that I cannot clarify right now. There are some permanent, some contractual pilots, and some hired in other ways," he pointed out.

However, Biman has now decided to recruit cadet pilots to mitigate the shortage. There was no option to recruit cadet pilots before, but now the airline has adopted the rule to recruit them, which will be discussed at the next board meeting scheduled for 21 March. It will soon call for applications for pilots by March, he added.

About financial performance, Azim said Biman made a record operational profit of over Tk1,500 crore in 2023, even after an exchange loss of Tk1,395 crore caused by the dollar price hike. This huge operational profit was achieved even after paying off loans of Tk1,000 crore, spending $4.6 million on purchasing a plane, and appointing 1,000 employees, he added.