Domestic Biman flights in 2 months

Biman Bangladesh Airlines has told a parliamentary oversight committee it will be able to resume domestic flights within two months.

Bangladesh Biman faced questions from the Parliamentary Standing Committee related to the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism on Monday.

Committee chief Md Faruk Khan told reporters after the meeting that Biman had told them it would be able to resume domestic flights, which have been off for several years, within two months.

The airline's last domestic flight, Dhaka-Cox's Bazar, was shut down in 2011.

The flag carrier currently takes passengers to and from Sylhet and Chittagong in its international flights.

United Airways, Regent Airways and Novo Air run domestic flights, but there are many complaints about the quality of their services.

Khan, a former civil aviation minister, said domestic flights had not been resumed because small aircraft were unavailable.

"The committee has told Biman to buy or lease small aircraft to resume the flights."

Kevin 'responsible' for Frankfurt

Biman officials blamed former MD Kevin Steele for the Dhaka-Frankfurt flights which operate on a huge loss when the committee asked for their justification to continue them.

Their response was rejected.

Faruk Khan told reporters the response was regrettable.

"One official cannot be responsible for such a thing. The whole agency is at fault here," he said.

Biman resumed its flights to the German city after seven years on Mar 31 last year. Currently there are two flights running every week.

Biman officials say each flight causes a loss of about Tk 7 million, and as such the total loss since the flights resumed stands at Tk 147 million.