On Wednesday, Biman did not carry any London passengers from Dhaka. The scheduled London flight was cancelled and the aircraft was sent to Dubai to offload passengers there and then sent to Amman, Jordan, to pick up stranded Biman passengers. An earlier Biman flight to London had made an emergency landing in Amman and its 198 passengers were there waiting to get to London.
Things went even worse for Biman Thursday when its scheduled Sylhet-Dhaka-Dubai-London flight returned to Dhaka with 221 passengers after the crew discovered smoke coming out of the cargo bay of the Airbus. The crew had to use the onboard fire extinguishers. The plane had taken off from Sylhet at 12:20pm Thursday after a couple of hours’ delay.
Biman MD and Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Zakiul Islam, however, said, “Hopefully, the backlog will be over as an Airbus with the 221 passengers will fly early Saturday.”
Biman sources said the flight will carry mostly stranded passengers of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s flights.
Biman failing to manage its flight schedules with its aging fleet has become a frequent phenomenon, passengers say. Only a few days ago Biman passengers heading for the middle-east had to endure delays as long as 40 hours.
