Five years ago, two Egyptian planes (Boeing 8-200 leased from Egypt Air) lost Tk 1,100 crore to Bangladesh Biman. This information has been revealed from the working paper of the meeting of the parliamentary committee on the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism held at the parliament building on Sunday.
Committee members Engineer Mosharraf Hossain, Tanvir Imam, Ashek Ullah Rafiq and Syeda Rubina Akter took part in the meeting held at the Parliament House under the chairmanship of RM Ubaidul Moktadir Chowdhury.
According to meeting sources, the minutes were passed in the meeting held on Sunday after the committee meeting held last month. According to the minutes, the aircraft was coming with a subsidy of Tk 11 crore per month. The aircraft was released last March after paying the dues and canceling the lease. The revenue from the operation of these two aircraft was Tk 2,200 crore. And the cost behind those two planes is Tk 3,300 crore.
According to aviation sources, the aircraft leased two Boeing 8-200 ERs from EgyptAir on a five-year contract. One was added to the fleet in March 2014 and the other in May of that year. The following year, in February 2015, after operating the flight, one of the engines broke down. Another engine was hired from EgyptAir to keep the aircraft running. The rest of the engine was damaged after a year and a half. The engine was sent to another company in the United States to be repaired. However, as a result of not specifying a time, Biman has to pay both the leased company and the repairing company. The aircraft has to face huge losses due to leasing the aircraft. The parliamentary committee of the tenth parliament repeatedly recommended the cancellation of the lease but it did not take effect then. The lease was canceled last March through the latest liability repayment.
At the meeting of the parliamentary committee on September 3, Mahibul Haque, senior secretary at the aviation ministry, said Biman wanted to get out of the lease culture. Three new Dash-8 aircraft were scheduled to arrive this year. Two of these will be added to the fleet this year and one is expected to be added to the fleet in January. The planes were bought for মিল 24 million.
At the meeting, committee member Syeda Rubina Akhter said the lease process of the aircraft was not clear to her. The matter needed to be discussed in a parliamentary committee during this process.
The meeting was informed that Biman had earned revenue of Tk 185 crore in July. His previous month's income was around Tk 189 crore. Biman did not lay off any staff during the Kavid-19 epidemic. However, the salary has been cut a bit and everyone has been kept. A few years ago a few new aircraft were purchased. Despite all this, Biman has paid all the installments at this time.
In addition, Biman borrowed Rs 1,000 crore from the government to deal with the current situation, of which only Rs 300 crore has been spent, the rest will not be spent.
