The national carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines has deferred its decision until July to increase the cost of tickets on a number of its international routes.
At a board meeting on 12 March, Biman management had decided that from May they would increase the fares of its more successful routes to deal with its financial deficit. Last year alone the airline lost Tk 2,93,00,000.
A decision was also taken to increase the fares by at least 10 per cent on the Kualalampur, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Bangkok routes, as well as increasing the fares at different levels on flight to Calcutta, Kathmandu, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Doha, Kuwait, Mascot and Rome.
The Biman board had also decided to increase the cost of the fare from London to Dhaka route but reduce the cost of flying from Dhaka to London.
Recently, however, Biman management has decided to wait for some months before making any changes in fares.
Biman public relations director general Khan Mosharraf Hossain told New Age that fare would not be raised right now due to highly competitive market, but if passengers increase, fares in the future will be raised.
‘The fare increase issue is part of a long-term planning process, so there is a possibility to increase the fare next July,’ he added.
Biman officials told New Age that they had initially thought that an increase in fares would not have a particular effect on passengers as the price of Biman tickets would still remain less than other international airlines, but because in recent weeks passengers to Middle-Eastern destinations have been reducing they decided to postpone the decision.
A Biman official, seeking anonymity, told New Age that in the month of June the number of air passengers is usually quite low and that prompted Biman not to raise the air fares just to survive in the competitive market.
In order to save money, Biman had temporarily suspended four routes to Manchester, Karachi, Hong-Kong and Delhi, though the Dhaka-HongKong and Dhaka-Delhi routes have resumed this month.
-With New Age input
