Biman pays Tk 500,000 to expatriate family in UK for delay

Biman Bangladesh Airlines has paid £4,601 or over Tk 500,000 in damages to a family of expatriates following a UK court order for a 24-hour delay of a Bangladesh-bound flight at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2012.

Syed Nahas Pasha London Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 16 Nov 2017, 08:17 PM
Updated : 5 Dec 2017, 10:35 AM

Expatriate Bangladeshi Shah Md Sanawar Hussain, one of the claimants of the damages, told bdnews24.com on Thursday that the flag carrier paid the amount on Oct 23 following the order by Liverpool County Court.

He said the amount consisted of the price of tickets for nine members of his family and the expenses to run the case.

Sanawar said 10 members of his family, including his elderly mother and several children, were scheduled to leave London on Biman’s flight BG006 on Dec 23, 2012.

“Biman cancelled the flight without any prior notice and book us a flight on the following day. My family and I had to suffer for this,” he said. 

He also alleged Biman staffers harassed them mentally during the journey.

He said he wrote a letter to the Biman authorities after returning to the UK from Bangladesh and then filed a complaint with UK Civil Aviation Authority as Biman did not respond to his letter.

When the Civil Aviation Authority forwarded the case to the county court, Biman proposed to settle the issue outside the court 'in national interest’.

In a letter to another member of the family on Apr 8, 2013, Biman said the flight carrying late president Zillur Rahman had been delayed due to ‘technical reason’.

But the case continued after the Biman letter and the court issued the order in September, Sanawar said.

He said the court ordered Biman to pay £465.69 to each of the nine claimants and an additional £410 as expenses to run the case.

Biman Country Manager in the UK Mohammed Shafiqul Islam told bdnews24.com, “The passengers had demanded a larger sum of money. In that sense, the court actually reduced the payable sum. I don’t think Biman suffered much loss because of this.”   

He said Biman flights were being delayed due to bolstered security in Dhaka and London.

“We face problems here especially when a flight is delayed in Dhaka,” he added.