The comeback of GMG Airlines, which is now offline, by previously announced December this year is still uncertain as the airliner could not complete its ‘new business strategy’ yet.
“It will take time, but the delay will not be from our side,” said Asif Ahmed, director (marketing, communication, HR and customer experience) of GMG Airlines.
He said the work to implement three steps of their ‘new business strategy’ is going on. The steps are returning their old leased aircraft, restructuring their routes and the workforce.
GMG Airlines, whose lion’s share is owned by Beximco Group, announced in March their plan to exit wide body aircraft operations and re-focus on high growth domestic and regional routes using new narrow body aircraft, dropping its fleet of Boeing 767s.
“We are looking for narrow body aircraft to lease them for the domestic and regional routes. We are talking with different parties to do that. But in the aviation industry, it is hard to do that overnight. So it will take time,” Asif Ahmed told UNB over telephone.
He said the airliner is looking for narrow body aircraft like Boeing 737 and Airbus 310.
“There are aircraft in the world market. But they are not meeting our demands like seat arrangements. So we have to go for restructuring the seat arrangements. For that we need more time,” he said.
When asked how long it will take to come in the operation, he could not give any specific date.
In March, GMG Airlines said it was planning to adopt a new business strategy in the light of rising fuel prices and a changing international competitive environment through a “360 degree restructure of its strategy, organisation, fleet and business model”.
The carrier, which delayed a planned IPO in September 2011 as a result of a stock market regulator suspension on book-building, expects to resume operations “later in 2012” with a new-look operation.
In its restructure, GMG Airlines, which commenced life in 1997 and started operations on April 6, 1998, will redesign its route network to focus on higher yield, higher growth domestic and regional routes using new narrow body aircraft.
In 2009, Beximco Group got the lion’s share of GMG Airlines.
Its domestic and regional routes would be included south, southeast and near East Asia.
