Three more months for Biman to fly Dhaka-Toronto regularly: state minister

State Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Mahbub Ali has said it will take at least three more months for Biman Bangladesh Airlines to start flying Dhaka-Toronto direct amid deliberations over an experimental flight slated for Mar 26.

An announcement on Saturday afternoon said the tickets of flight BG 305 were up for grabs and travellers will be able to book tickets on Biman’ website, and through call centre and authorised travel agents.

But a sales representative said not even the return tickets were available for ordinary people. The authorities did not say who would take the flight.

People related to the aviation industry wondered why the authorities initiated the costly test flight.

At a press conference on Thursday, the state minister said he and other government officials will travel to Canada on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on the first test flight.

In a written statement, Mahbub Ali said the direct flight path was arranged to meet demands from the Bangladeshi expatriates living in Canada.

“We’ve been hoping to begin the Canada flight for the last couple of years. We decided to launch it on Mar 26 to commemorate Independence Day after the Canadian authorities finalised everything. We held a press briefing to announce it.

“But right after the conference, we received a mail stating they [Canadian authorities] require 12 weeks to automate the boarding process. Later, we requested them to let us make the first flight on the special day.

“It's a prestige issue for us. We put enough thought behind it. It's important to start it on Mar 26.”

The Canadian high commissioner in Dhaka, Lilly Nichols highlighted the significance of this air connectivity at the press conference.

The countries engage in $3 billion trade annually while more than 100,000 Bangladesh-origin people are now Canadian citizens and over 8,000 students study there, she said.

Direct flights will improve communication between the two countries, she said.

Asked why it will take three months more for the service to begin, she said the flights involve high-level technical matters and issues, including security, still need to be worked out.

Mahbub Jahan Khan, a director of Biman, said maximum Tk 40 million will be spent on the test flight.

He claimed the tickets were not exclusive, but 36 were sold to passengers – 30 for the economy class at Tk 75,800 each and six for business class at Tk 111,000.

“We'd never said tickets were sold out.”

Citing a Biman market research, he said they found passengers prefer direct flights even if it means they have to pay more.

“It'll be a premium product. I hope our expatriates will agree to pay Tk 10,000 to Tk 20,000 more.”

The test flight will have 130 to 140 passengers onboard. The regular flights will carry 220 to 230 passengers.