A fourth private carrier has joined the domestic air traffic system from last week The Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Rashed Khan Menon launched the first flight of the carrier US-Bangla Airline at Hazral Shahjalal International Airport at a programme held at the tarmac on Wednesday last.
The new airline will operate flights on two domestic routes initially. It will expand the network in phases. It will now operate two weekly flights to Chittagong and one to Jessore with two 76-seater DASH-8-Q400 turboprop aircraft and double the number of flights on these routes in August.
The airline will also operate one weekly flight to Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet each from the next month.
The company management said the new airline will offer economic fare rates to passengers. A concern of US-Bangla Group that runs businesses in real estate, leather, pharmaceuticals and furniture, the airline hopes to provide passengers with better services and comfort, its managing director Abdullah Al Mamun said in a statement.
The airline will arrange special transports equipped with Wi-Fi for passengers to and from Chittagong, Jessore and Sylhet airports and the cities and towns, the statement further said.
The new airline has launched business to tap growing air traffic on local routes as the number of passengers is growing steadily over the past years and tourism is increasingly becoming popular to middle income people.
It came nearly one and a half years after Novoair took to the skies. Two other private local carriers, United Airways and Regent Airways are also operating in domestic routes; besides the national carrier Bangladesh BIman is carrying the bulk of passenger in domestic and international routes.
News report said in 2013, 648,019 people travelled nationally by air, up 10 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB).
After launching the new airline at a programme at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Civil Aviation Minister Rashed Khan Menon asked the company’s management to maintain schedule and ensure safety and comfort for passengers.
He said private airlines start well, but allegations of delayed flights and passengers’ sufferings surface over them later.
The airline has received the green light from CAAB after proving that it has the infrastructure, economic ability and enough capable manpower to ensure safety, said Air-Vice Marshal Mahmud Hussain, chairman of CAAB.
Currently, local carriers fly mainly from the capital to Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Sylhet and Jessore with the highest traffic flow to Chittagong, followed by Dhaka to Jessore.
Source: Weekly Holiday
