The Financial Express, 28 July 2012
The country’s oldest private carrier GMG Airlines Ltd. is set to resume its operation within the next six months, officials have said.
The GMG Airlines suspended all of its flight operations from March 30 this year citing its precarious financial situation and also for strategic restructuring against rising fuel price in the competitive global market.
“Earlier, we thought it would have been possible for us to resume in 3 or 4 months but now we will take six more months for recommence of flight operation,” Director (Customer care and Marketing) of GMG Airlines Asif Ahmed told the Financial Express Thursday.
He said in this connection we sent a letter to the Civil Aviation Authority updating GMG’s future plan, but this is not final decision and it may be changed.
During temporary shutdown of GMG, the flight operator said as part of the new strategy, GMG halted wide body operations, and will be replacing their Boeing 767s with new generation narrow-bodied aircraft with a renewed emphasis on on-time operation, reliability, and customer satisfaction.
It said, “The airlines is planning to adopt a new business strategy in light of rising fuel prices and changing international competitive environment through a 360 degree restructure of its strategy, organisation, fleet and business model.”
He said GMG will redesign its route network to focus on higher yield, higher growth in domestic and regional routes using new generation narrow body aircraft.
“We will prefer regional operation during the recommence,” he said.
Regarding airplane, he said the company is looking for Airbus A19 or 320 and Boeing 737 for restart.
He said GMG will refocus more on South, South-East, and Near-East Asia, with a few select narrow-body routes to the Middle-East rather than long route operation.
Prior to the closure, the carrier was only operating flights on Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar and Dhaka-Chittagong-Kolkata routes by two Bombardier Dash 8s.
GMG operated flights with three Boeing 767s, three MD-80s (McDonnell Douglas) and two Bombardier Dash-8s. But the airline grounded six aircraft in 2010 and 2011.
It also had six international routes including Bangkok, Jeddah, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Kolkata, and Riyadh, all of which were suspended in 2011 except Kolkata.
During the temporary closure, about 900 employees became jobless of its total 1000 workforce.
Some of them alleged to FE that they are not getting benefits from the airlines according to terms and conditions of service.
But Asif Ahmed said the employees are receiving their benefits according to law.
Also, the airline still has debt worth Tk 459.3 million to the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh and Tk 180 million in travel tax to the National Board of Revenue as of July 2011.
In April, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suspended GMG from its billing and settlement plan as the carrier failed to pay dues to the internet-based system of the association.
Due to the suspension, all travel and ticketing agents and general sales agents removed the airlines’ ticketing authorities from their systems.
The IATA provides services for the settlement of financial transactions between travel agents and airlines.
In 2009, Beximco Group bought the lion’s share of GMG Airlines, which has been operating since 1998.
Bangladesh Economy 
Leave a comment