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Bangladesh Airlines in a Better Health

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Unlike Biman | The Daily Star

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Unlike Biman
Refreshing change clearly noticeable with new boss at the helm
Inam Ahmed and Shariful Islam

If you have flown Biman of late, you are likely to notice a few things. Your flight, most probably, had departed on time. The on-flight service was better. And you might have a surprise welcome on arrival at Dhaka by the top Biman man.

Biman, in the last one month, seems to be trying to fly straight from the rudderless flight that had pushed the national airlines in the red. It has got a new managing director, the first foreign chief executive Kevin John Steele, who has been trying all the tricks to change Biman.

First, Kevin is trying to make planes take off on time. The success is quite high, considering he has been in charge for less than a month. In one week in April, 2012, on-time flight departure was only 27 percent. In the last week beginning April 14, 41 percent flights departed on time.

“This is a bit of an improvement, but this is still nothing like acceptable, nothing like major airlines, so I want to get this over 80 percent before the end of this year,” Kevin says. “One big thing is the average delay has dropped a lot more. Last year, with no standby aircraft, we had some delays of over 12 hours.”

Kevin has gone for simple solutions to bring about this improvement. He has kept the old DC-10 aircraft standby. In case any aircraft develops technical glitch, the DC-10 rushes to lift passengers.

A lot of delays occur because of passenger handling at the immigration and check-in. So, Biman has worked back a schedule from the time departure and is sticking to it. It is arranging quicker passing of passengers on priority basis.

Biman has given measurable targets to all staff, which includes punctuality. “This has improved services but it is not good enough. I want British Airways results,” says Kevin, who once served as General Manager of British Airways.

Kevin’s biggest challenge and Biman’s, however, is bringing the airlines from the red to the black. Last year, it suffered a loss of $75 million. Kevin has identified about 20 steps, some of them quite simple, to save cost.

For example, one step is to cut the number of passengers on waiting list. Biman used to allow up to 50 passengers on waiting list. But to book each ticket, the airlines has to pay $7 to a company for using its “global distribution system” (GDS).

What Kevin did is cutting the waiting list from 50 to 15 passengers. Thus Biman can save $245 on GDS charge every flight. For the whole year, it means saving $1.5 million a year.

Another simple step is to save on fuel. In winter, weather over Dhaka and Chittagong often remains foggy. This is why each flight has to carry extra fuel so that it could divert to Yangon in case of poor visibility.

For this every flight had to carry excess fuel weighing 1,000kg. This extra fuel costs money. Moreover, to carry this 1,000kg extra load, each flight has to burn about 200kg equivalent of fuel.
So Kevin has equipped the Sylhet airport with fuel trucks so that aircraft can land in Sylhet instead of Yangon in case of foggy weather. This would save another $2 million a year.

Kevin has also planned a revenue management system. This would help give priority to passengers on priority routes. For example, fare from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah is $900 while from Dhaka to Jeddah it is $850. So flying passengers from Kuala Lumpur to Jeddah is not profitable.

When the new revenue management system will be in place, Dhaka-Jeddah passengers will get priority. Biman can save $20 million from this.

Fuel efficient aircraft is a key to cutting cost. Biman will float tenders for two Boeing 777s in August to take a lease on them for five years.

Kevin said Biman has Boeing 777s, 737-800s and Airbus A310s but the Airbus is fuel inefficient and he would phase them out in two years. “We have eight aircraft now. I am looking at 16 in two years,” Kevin adds.

Biman will also introduce e-customers’ feedback and rating of services. Staff who can surpass their targets will get extra bonuses. “I am looking at Biman not from domestic perspective but from international viewpoint,” Kevin says. “In one year, Biman will do 95 percent of what British Airways or Etihad has been doing.”

The end point — “Biman is looking at $70 million in savings and a comeback to black.
 
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PIA should get a gora MD too, seems to be working for every airline.
 
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PIA should get a gora MD too, seems to be working for every airline.

No need for any gora :fie:
PIA will become better and profitable when we introduced corrupt free people and a honest leadership, PIA should be taken off from Defense ministry.
 
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why cannot the Bangladeshi people be as efficient and determined as this guy? :hitwall:

Wishing for something and getting the same thing are different. Do you expect our bickering people, whatever may be the University degrees, can do it? Making conspiracies, internal and external, are our national past time. Go to any govt office and check how efficiently they work.

Our garments industry is moving only because these are private enterprises. But, Bangladesh Airlines is under the tug of govt people and politicians. The politicians have finally come to a good decision by appointing a non-bickering foreigner, an Englishman, as the head of Biman.

However, I wonder how long he will be given cooperation by others inside the airline. There are reasons to suspect he may be allowed to fail in the near future and consequently sacked for inefficiency.
 
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He is going to run into trouble pretty soon as he will steps on someone's toes inadvertently.

The corrupt Biman employes been milking Biman for decades. They won't go down quietly into the night.
 
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What we should do is fire all our ministers and hire from the best managers from the majority population of these countries, in the following order of preference:

- Japan
- South Korea
- EU
- Canada
- Oceania
- USA

We should also have an anti-corruption department manned from above countries, so we have a good and working watch dog to prevent corruption.

And voila, Bangladesh will become developed in a few decades.

But alas, will the army of crooks, thugs and goons agree? They will revolt in disgust and slit the throat of anyone making a suggestion like this.

why cannot the Bangladeshi people be as efficient and determined as this guy? :hitwall:

The answer is same as the answer to another question, why is Bangladesh one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world?
 
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I will cite one example of bad management of BG Bangladesh Airlines. It is about its past operations in the Dhaka-Bangkok-Tokyo route. Biman no more operates in this route, though we feel it must re-open it. Previously, there was only one flight a week in this route. This had following disadvantages that made the operation economically unfeasible.

1) The crew members who would bring the flight to Tokyo in any week, will take rest for the entire seven days until the next flight arrives with another group of crews. The newly arrived crews would take rest and the previous ones would take the flight back to Dhaka. Now, calculate the costs associated with the crews' one week staying in Tokyo. The expenses included lodging, food, transport, traveling allowances, and some others that I am not aware of.

2) Only once a week flight does only bad business. Many Japanese passengers to Bangkok would not use BG because it did not have a return flight after two or three days from Bangkok. Japanese cannot waste their precious time in BKK while they have to pay also for their stay there.

3) Biman had an office in Tokyo. Expenses could not be recovered by only once a week flight.

There were other reasons that Biman was losing money in this route. Finally, it stopped operations. If Biman wants to operate profitably in this route in the future it must talk to the aviation ministries of both the countries and ask for at least three flights a week.
 
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