Business Report
Passengers’ owes at Dhaka Shahjalal International Airport know no bound. They have to wait hours together to get their baggage as the workers handling the unloading of personal cargo from Biman flights take longer time for reasons not justified any way.
They delay the unloading on many motives. It may be to force the management to pay heed to their demands which are always in the air. The other reason may be that they make attempt for pilferage by cutting passengers’ baggage.
There may be yet a third problem relating to lack of proper handling equipment which
causes delay or provoke the handlers to go slow to justify their demand for adding better equipment to baggage handling. At other international airports, such unloading and delivery of baggage to passengers take only from 30 to 40 minutes time.
A report filed by BDnews24.com on Wednesday last said, Biman Bangladesh
Airlines is going to seek Request For Proposal (RFP) from foreign ground handling agents for quick and orderly unloading of passengers artefacts.
Quoting Biman’s Managing Director Capt Mosaddique Ahmed, the report said
decision on whether Biman will go for a joint venture will be taken later. The first priority is to appoint a handling agent, he said.
At present the Shahjalal International Airport handles around 50 flights daily of four local carriers, besides over 100 international flights of 25 carriers from 18 countries.
Most international airports appoint more than one agent for ground handling to ensure quality services, he said.
In Bangladesh only Biman employees are tasked with the unloading services.
But foreign airlines have been demanding recruiting more than one handling agents as Biman reportedly lacks trained manpower and modern equipment.
The demand gained momentum after last year’s strike by Biman handling employees during which ground operations at Shahjalal airport were literally put on halt for nearly five hours.
At that time, the civil aviation authorities wrote to the ministry for appointing an alternative handling agent.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Biman official told the agency “Biman does not have any equipment as a ground handler. He said the number of airlines has increased over the past five years but neither Biman’s manpower nor its equipment was upgraded, although Biman earned over Tk 5 billion during fiscal 2012-13 alone from ground handling services.
An independent company for ground handling, on which Biman would not have direct control, was planned in 2006. But, it did not get final approval. The official said if ground handling was done on a joint venture basis, the foreign company would invest quite a bit to improve service qualities.
And here’s the problem. Biman employees fear many of them will lose jobs if the company’s most profitable sector goes for joint venture. Most workers will lose their jobs as they are employed on a daily-basis contract.
Aviation expert Kazi Wahedul Alam believes that the inclusion of a foreign partner in ground handling will be a positive move. He said other countries employ more than one agents which lead to competition and better customer services.
Source: Weekly Holiday
