Civil Aviation ministry has asked for all relevant information about the leasing of two aircrafts by Bangladesh Biman from Egypt Air. It’s believed that for these two crafts, the country faces a loss of Tk 100 million every month.
After becoming state minister for civil aviation, state minister, Mahbub Ali went to Biman Bangladesh office on 20 January and expressed anguish over loss incurred by the leased crafts.
At the meet, secretary of Biman, Mohibul Huq, wanted to know the conditions for the lease, but the authority could not provide satisfactory answers.
Biman sources say that Biman dry leased 2 Boeing 777-200 crafts for five years from Egypt Air. Both the crafts joined the fleet in 2014, in March and May.
As per the agreements, the monthly payment for the crafts was set at $585,000 (Tk 47.16 million) whether they are used for passenger transport or not.
In addition, Biman has the responsibility of bearing the expenditure of their maintenance.
Later, one aircraft had an engine problem and to keep the craft airworthy, an engine was again leased from Egypt Air for Tk 0.8 million ($10,000) per month. The engine was sent to London based United Airlines which showed another glitch within three years of fixing. Once more, an engine was leased for Tk 0.8 million a month.
As per conditions of the agreements, the crafts cannot be returned before five years and the Biman authorities are paying the lease amount every month.
The crafts have to be returned in the condition in which they were leased.
Reportedly, the ministry will assess if there were any incongruities in leasing the crafts along with the possibility of any nefarious underhand deals aimed to benefit some unscrupulous officials.
Additional secretary of civil aviation and tourism ministry, Md. Mokabbir Hossain, said, “We talked to Biman about improving service and information has been demanded to probe into losses. “