Muhammad Faruk Khan, the minister of civil aviation and tourism, announced today that Biman Bangladesh Airlines will buy a plane from either the European aerospace behemoth Airbus or the US-based Boeing, depending on which one would yield the highest level of economic success.
“We will procure aircraft in reflection of Bangladesh’s profit and the manufacturer could be Airbus or Boeing” he told reporters after emerging from a meeting with US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas at the secretariat here.
In reply to a quarry the minister said, it is obvious that the US wants to sell more Boeing aircraft to Biman, but Bangladesh government will consider the entire issue including technical and economic aspects in this matter.
Airbus, Boeing’s main rival, is currently negotiating with flag airline Biman to sell 10 wide-body aircraft, including two freighters.
Khan stated that during the discussion, they talked about how to further the current collaboration between Dhaka and Washington in order to strengthen Bangladesh’s aviation and tourism sector going forward.
According to the minister, he also spoke about the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh’s (CAAB) upgrade to category-1, which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated in order to restart flights from Dhaka to New York.
Currently, he said, an audit team of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is working with the CAAB while a FAA team is schedule to arrive here for conducting co-audit later this year to uplift Bangladesh to FAA’s category-1.
Prior to the meeting, the US ambassador declared that his nation will support CAAB and Biman in completing the necessary procedures to obtain approval to operate flights to the United States.
According to the US envoy, Boeing proposed to Biman that they sell new planes in order to fulfill the national flag carrier’s wish to grow its fleet.
According to him, Washington desires that Boeing participate in the Biman procurement procedure in an open competition with Airbus.
