Sohel Parvez
UAE-based carrier RAK Airways has shut down its operation in Bangladesh as global financial meltdown is causing a drop in demand for air travel, officials said yesterday.
The closure of operation has forced about around 15 employees of the Dhaka office of the airline out of job. However, the carrier’s General Sales Agent (GSA) Mohammed Aviation said the shut down is ‘temporary’.
“We have suspended operation for the time being. It’s mainly because of global financial crisis,” SAK Ekramuzzaman, chief executive of Mohammed Aviation, told The Daily Star.
RAK Airways, based in Ras-al-Khaimah of UAE, has moved to exit Bangladesh aviation market about two months after it had suspended flights from Dhaka and Chittagong as its fleet reduced from three to one.
This lone aircraft also went grounded on technical glitch early December 2008. RAK is the latest one to withdraw business from Bangladesh aviation market.
Earlier, Singapore Airlines, one of the world’s leading carriers, said it would reduce to five flights a week from Dhaka from the present daily flights as it counted less than expected travellers in the wake of global economic downturn.
Slowing demand for air travel also had prompted Thai Airways to suspend operations from Chittagong earlier and cut the number of flights from Dhaka.
The airline, which entered Bangladesh aviation market by the end of November 2007, had been operating three flights a week from Dhaka and two flights from Chittagong to Ras-Al-Khaimah before it suspended flights.
Undergoing management overhaul, RAK Airways, UAE’s fourth carrier after Emirates, Etihad and Air Arabia, also cut about 60 staff and terminated flights to other destinations like Calicut, India and Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Officials said the airline had been faring well since it started flying from Bangladesh, recording an average 90 percent load factor in its flights.
Its offices at both Dhaka and Chittagong airports have recently been closed.
Ekramuzzaman said the carrier’s office at airports have been shut down because there is no flight schedule right now.
“We want to come back. We hope for the best,” he said.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
