Biman Bangladesh Airlines learnt a lesson from Tk 11 billion losses to two Boeing 777-200 aircraft leased from Egypt, a director of the flag carrier has said.
The director, Air Commodore Mahbub Jahan Khan, and other officials faced journalists at Shahjalal International Airport after a team of the Anti-Corruption Commission visited the Biman headquarters to examine papers related to the leasing of the jets on Wednesday, reports bdnews24.com.
Asked about Biman's measures on the matter, Mahbub said, “The most important thing is Biman has learnt a lesson from this. Biman formulated guidelines on leasing aircraft after the incident. It has fixed how many meetings will be required and how many times the matter will be placed before the board before an aircraft is leased.”
Mahbub said several rounds of investigation had been conducted into the leasing of the aircraft before he joined Biman in 2018. “I’ve seen that the two aircraft are in Vietnam, from where they are supposed to be returned. We’ve started working amid this complexity.”
Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal, managing director and CEO of Biman, said the ACC is examining the papers following recommendations made by the parliamentary standing committee on the civil aviation and tourism ministry. Kamal said he ordered officials to cooperate with the ACC.
Biman leased the aircraft from Egypt Air in a five-year deal in 2014. One of the planes was pressed into Biman service in March 2014 while the other was put in operation two months later.
Within a year of flying, the engine of one of the Boeing 777-200s went out of order, necessitating the leasing of another engine from Egypt Air in 2015 to keep the flight operational.
Things went further downhill when the engine of the other aircraft died a year and a half later, forcing Biman to lease yet another engine to keep the plane flying.
Compounding the woes, this engine, too, broke down and was sent to another company in the United States for repairs.
But the company did not provide a deadline to return a repaired engine and Biman ended up paying both the company they leased the engine from and the firm doing the repairs.
The parliamentary committee in September 2020 heard that the revenue made from the two aircraft totalled Tk 22 billion against expenditures running up to Tk 33 billion.
For these planes, the flag carrier had been giving subsidies of Tk 110 million per month before completing the payment in March 2020.