Introduction:

Biman Bangladesh Airlines is the national flag carrier airline of Bangladesh. Its main hub is at
Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka and it also operates flights from its secondary hubs Shah
Amanat International Airport in Chittagong and Osmani International Airport in Sylhet. The
airline provides international passenger and cargo services to Asia and Europe, as well as major
domestic routes inside Bangladesh. It has air service agreements with 42 countries and currently
flies to 16 different countries.
The airline was wholly owned and managed by the government of Bangladesh until 23 July
2007, when it was transformed into the country's largest public limited company by the
Caretaker Government of Bangladesh. The airline's headquarters, Balaka Bhaban, is located in
Kurmitola, Dhaka. Annual Hajj flights, transporting non-resident Bangladeshi workers and
migrants, and the activities of its subsidiaries, form an integral part of the carrier's business.
Created in February 1972. In the decades following its founding, the airline expanded its fleet
and destinations. At its peak, Biman has operated flights to 29 international destinations, as far
away as New York City to the west and Tokyo to the east. Since becoming a public limited
company in 2007, the airline has begun to modernize its fleet. The airline has made a deal with
Boeing for ten new aircraft, along with options for ten more.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines is certified as safe to fly in Europe by the European Aviation Safety
Agency. In addition, the airline successfully passed the IATA Operational Safety Auditand since
then it has been successfully flying to some of its previous destinations in Asia and Europe.
Biman plans to fly the nations bi-coloured flag to greater heights, with great pride around the
globe.

Organizational Overview
Biman Bangladesh at a Glance:
Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. is the most reputed airlines in Bangladesh. It is popularly known
as Biman. Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd is the flag carrier airline of Bangladesh. As a member
of IATA, it flies passengers and cargo to 16 international destinations in Asia and Europe. It goes
to most of the destinations directly or via a stopover. Convenient transfer connections from
Dhaka to regional destinations are easily available. Biman is reputed for its well-trained and
dedicated crew with appreciable safety record.

Page | 1

The airlines Reservation and Departure Control System and other communication systems are
fully computerized. Biman is now striving to make the airline more attractive to its valued
passengers by fixing priority on providing more comfort. Its main hub is Shahjalal
International Airport in Dhaka and also operates flights from Shah Amanat International
Airport in Chittagong, earning revenue from the connecting service to Osmani International
Airport in Sylhet. Biman provides international passenger and cargo service to Asia and Europe,
as well as major domestic routes. It has air service agreements with 42 countries, but only flies to
16. The airline was wholly owned and managed by the Government of Bangladesh until 23 July
2007, when it was transformed into the countrys largest public limited company by the
Caretaker Government of Bangladesh. The airlines headquarters, Balaka Bhaban, is located in
Kurmitola, Dhaka.
In addition to its own aircraft, Bimans ground-handling unit also provides support to
Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Emirates, Kuwait Airways,
Oman Air, Saudia, Gulf Air, PIA, Indian Airlines, Dragon Air, Druk Air, etc.at Hazrat Shahjalal
International Airport, Dhaka.
Though Biman has been facing huge amount of financial loss from last few years, the loss has
been diminishing.
Vision
To establish Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. in the aviation market as a world-class airline.
Mission:
To provide safe, reliable, efficient, adequate, economical and properly co-coordinated air
transport services and to satisfy customers expectations while earning sustainable profit and
continuing to be a caring employer.
Main Objectives:
To provide and develop safe, efficient, adequate, economical and properly coordinated air
transport services, internal as well as international.

Page | 2

Service Values:
Trusted: It starts with a commitment to personal and corporate integrity.
Collaborative: Teaming with coworkers and our customers to provide services that are better
than what we can do individually.
Attributes: Respect, listening, learning, contributing, customized, scalable and robust.
Innovative: Applying technologies, processes and methods in new ways to provide quality
services. Attributes: creative, unique, relevant, practical, proven and valuable.
Efficient: A focus on improving our own efficiency without decreasing the strength of our
relationship and commitment to our customer.
Attributes: streamlined, economical and friendly.
Global/Local: The people and facilities that support the customers worldwide operationsglobal, regional, local.
Attributes: networked, coordinated, responsive and familiar.

A look on Operational and Financial Performance:

The Directors of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Limited observed that the company has made a
consolidated loss of Tk. 80.14 crore during the year 2009-2010.
During the financial year 2009-2010, Biman has earned total revenue of Tk. 2,913.60 crore
including revenue from Hajj Operation of Tk. 290.17 crore. During the previous year 2008-09, it
was Tk. 3,012.82 crore including revenue from Hajj Operation of Tk. 298.82 crore.
Passenger revenue contributed about 77.87% of total operating revenue of the airline. Cargo and
Excess-Baggage contributed 8.22% and 1.27% respectively. It may be mentioned here that due to
capacity constraint, Biman could not fully exploit the cargo market opportunity, Biman has
brought cargo under automation and other modern marketing mechanism has also been set to
optimize revenue with the planned fleet enhancement.

Page | 3

Activities of the Company:

Directors would like to highlight some significant achievements during the period and a
background and future plan of the activities of the company.
All Economy Class:
Biman continued to earn additional revenue through all-economy operations of its DC10-30 fleet
enabling to increase its Economy Class capacity by 15 percent. However, with the re-branding
initiative presently under process to enhance Bimans Image, operation of DC10-30 fleet will be
restricted to selected routes only in the coming days.
Hajj Operation:
Biman is honored to have to have the opportunity to serve the Hajj pilgrims. During the fiscal
year, it successfully transported 31,700 Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia through operation of 54
Hajj flights and also 32 scheduled flights from Dhaka and Chittagong. During the previous year,
Biman had transported 29,604 Hajj pilgrims through 40 Hajj flights and 34 scheduled flights.
Direct Service DAC-LHR-DAC:
Biman has introduced dedicated direct flights on DAC-LHR-DAC route since March 2010. It
may also be mentioned that there is no direct flights from DAC-LHR-DAC by other Airlines.

Network:
Biman had 22 destinations in its network including 02 domestic destinations. Due to continuous
losses, operation on some destination was suspended. This initiative decreased losses. With the
induction of additional aircrafts, some of the suspended routes have been revived. Operation to
NYC is expected to resume soon.

New Look of Marketing & Sales Team:

As part of the re-organization plan, restructuring of the Marketing Department has been
undertaken to prepare the airline for the highly competitive market environment. The reorganized
Marketing approach places emphasis on revenues from income streams of Passenger, Cargo and
other Businesses.

Page | 4

Introducing Intranet and Office Management Software

With the cooperation of Boeing, Biman has established a PC based intranet that would enable
speedy decision-making. This state of the auto system would take help from different Office
Management Software which will make routine decision making very user-friendly.

Migration of Reservation and SITATEX Services

Biman used Dumb Terminals for its reservation services for the last two decades. In addition,
older version of SITATEX played an important role for messaging services, biman entered into
New Generation Network and replaced Dumb Terminals and older PCs for entire network. For
doing so, they have introduced IP-VPN (Internet protocol- Virtual Private Network) for network
side and replaced desktops by branded PCs. This migration results to access high-speed data
transfer. At present, they possess a world standard reservation and SITATEX services.

AIRLOGICA (DATA Mining Technology)

Working in partnership with GDS companies is very important. It is equally important to
maintain GDS cost at a rational level. Biman has signed an agreement with AIRLOGICA. It uses
sophisticated data mining techniques to assist airlines to fully appreciate Global Distribution
System costs by allowing the user to choose reports and perform ad hoc queries.
Billing & Settlement Plan (BSP)
In 2008-09, Biman initiated efforts to bring its station under BSP. By the end of 2008-09, all
Biman stations have been brought under BSP except Rome due to local market scenario. BSP is a
system designed to facilitate and simplify the selling, reporting and remitting procedures of IATA
Accredited Passenger Sales Agents, as well as to improve financial control and cash flow for
BSP Airlines. A truly worldwide system, at the close of 2008, there were 88 BSPS, covering 160
countries and territories serving 400 airlines, while gross sales processed amount to USD 239
billion. BSP simplifies total distribution burdens of the airlines as agents issue on Sales Report
and remit one amount to a central point, airlines receive one settlement covering all agents and
most importantly agents sales are reported electronically. This has caused savings both for
Biman and its agents. Biman not only participated in BSP but also made it mandatory to all its
agents. Now agents are dealing with Biman in a more secured environment with reduced
financial risk exposure.
Cargo Accounts Settlement System (CASS)
Biman has also been among the pioneering airlines to introduce Cargo Accounts Settlement
Systems (CASS), designed to simplify the billing and settlement of accounts between airlines
Page | 5

and freight forwarders. It operates through CASS link, and advanced global web-enables ebilling solution. CASS yields a two-fold solution as it replaces:
a)

Airlines traditional paper based invoicing.

b)
Agents manual controlling of those invoices, while all benefits from the enhanced
financial control and improved cash flow as the CASS rate of success in collecting funds is
virtually 100%.
CASS has been fully in operation in this year with 27 Freight Forwarders and 4 Airlines
members. As per IATA Mandate, E-freight to be 100% implemented globally. Bangladesh needs
to sign on Montreal Protocol 1999 or Montreal Protocol 2004 immediately to introduce E-freight
in Bangladesh this year.
Passengers Intelligence Service (PaxlS)
At the beginning of 2008 Biman took the initiative of implementing PaxlS, a powergul and
essential market intelligence tool for air travel analysis, which was finally implemented during
May 2009. PaxlS, a product developed by IATA Business Intelligence Service, is the nost
comprehensive airline passenger market intelligence database available today, with more
accurate, reliable and affordable data captured through IATA Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP).
PaxlS reports issued ticket information from more than 400 airlines carriers covering 82 BSP
offices. The product is presently being extensively used for Network planning, Fleet planning
Marketing planning and Agency monitoring and performance analysis.
E-Ticketing
After implementing E-ticketing in 2007-08, within the IATA dead line, Biman continued to
achieve improvement in this area. Through implementation of Departure Control System in
RLIH, JED and CGP, travels with e-ticketing from those stations were made smoother. Interline
E-ticketing Agreements were signed with 9 more airlines.

Launching Internet Booking Engine

Biman introduced Internet Booking Engine (IBE) for the airlines reservation and ticketing
system. By introducing IBE to the airlines ticketing system, passengers will now directly
retrieve information about airline schedules and able to make booking.
Internet Booking Engine (IBE) is an application, which helps the travel and tourism industry
support reservation through the internet. It helps the consumers to book flights, hotels, holiday

Page | 6

packages, insurance and other services online. This is a much needed application for the aviation
industry as it has become one of the fastest growing sales channels.
With the introduction of Internet Booking Engine (IBE), the airlines, has been able to make
direct exposure to customers. Again IBE will help Biman to cut off extra expenses and to support
instant booking and payment.
Non-stop services by B-777
Introduction of non-stop services by B-777 on DAC-LON-DAC and DAC-ROM-DAC sectors
has helped Biman retain/improve its ethic in the face of stiff competition from other indirect
operators. Biman strengthened its position in UK market, as this non-stop service has been
proved very popular to the Bangladeshi ethic community. Operation of B-777 to Singapore and
Kuala Lumpur for 3 months in fiscal year 2009-10, before utilizing it on London and Rome
sectors, helped Biman carry huge labor, tourist and business traffic from different points,
especially from Katmandu.

The core businesses/activities

Air transportation of passengers,
Air transportation of cargo.

The non-core businesses/activities

Ground and cargo handling services for own and foreign airlines
Engineering services
Bangladesh Airlines Training Centre (BATC)
Biman Flight Catering Center (BFCC)
Biman Poultry Complex (BPC)
Motor transport
Medical services
Biman Printing Press
Partnership Business with Abacus (National marketing Company
Page | 7

Services

Contains

Airport Services

CHECK IN, Airport Lounges,

Unaccompanied Minor, Wheel Chair, Transit
Passengers

On-Board your Flight

IN-FLIGHT SERVICES (Breakfast Menu,

Lunch Menu, Dinner Menu)

Ground Handling, Cargo Service

In-flight Duty Free

Biman Boutique

In-flight Magazine

Bihanga

In-Flight Entertainment
CHECK IN
Airport Terminal Directory(Plan ahead for your flight, and check in advance the
Terminal for your Biman Flight)

Tips to help speed your way through Airport formalities:

Page | 8

* Report to the Biman Bangladesh Airlines check-in counter on-time

* Keep your ticket, passport and visa documents handy

* Proceed to the security check point; ensure you are not bringing any prohibited items with you
* Keep your passport and boarding pass readily available when entering passenger boarding
lounge

Check-in counter closes one hour prior to departure

It is important that you arrive at check-in for your flight On-time. Check-in closes one hour
before departure. The boarding gate normally closes 20 minutes prior to departure. This could
vary depending on your departure airport.
TRAVEL TIP - Always keep your documents handy

Double check that you have your passport, tickets and all other necessary documents with you
before you leave home to embark on your journey.
Airport Lounges:Lounge access is available for Biman Business Class
passengers. The Maslin Lounge, is located on 2nd floor of Hazrat Shahjalal
International Airport. Biman Business Class passengers also have access to
airport
lounges
around
the
world.
Unaccompanied Minor:Handling Facilities for Unaccompanied Minor is
available both at arrivals and departures with prior request during
reservation and fulfillment of traveling conditions.
Wheel Chair:Wheel Chair facilities are available on both arrivals and
departures with prior request at the time of reservation.
Transit Passengers:A dedicated desk for transit/transfer passengers is
available round the clock for Biman & Customer Airlines at Hazrat Shahjalal
International Airport.

Page | 9

On-Board your Flight

IN-FLIGHT SERVICES
Biman has incorporated suggestions of many of our traveller into the most creative
menus youll find in the air. For the outbound flight from Dhaka all the foods are
carefully prepared by Biman Flight Catering Centre (BFCC). BFCC proudly offers
Flight Catering Services to many other airlines in the foot print. Unquestionably our
menus still taste wonderful at 30,000 feet. Here is some sample menu of typical
long-haul flights:

Breakfast Menu:A range of fresh fruit juice offered in addition to sodas, cheese omlet, sauted
mushroom, crossant, fresh roll, butter, jam, tea, coffee.
Lunch Menu
Salad:(Garden salad with freshly picked seasonal vegetables.)
Main Course:(Chicken curry served with most unique fragrant rice from
nations own harvest, assorted seasonal vegetable sauted, garnished with
lemon and green chili.)
Dessert: (Rice pudding flavoured with rose water and garnished with fresh
scrambled nuts.)
Dinner Menu
Salad: Fruit salad with freshly picked seasonal fruit.
Main Course: Lamb curry served with fine grain rice cooked with Moong dal,
assorted seasonal vegetable sauted, garnished with green chili, butter-nun
(baked in tandoor)
Dessert: Caramel custard garnished with canned peach.

Ground Handling
Biman Bangladesh Airlines offers premium Ground Handling services for all airlines flying to
any location within Bangladesh. Biman Bangladesh Airlines provides Ground Handling facilities
to all the Airports in Bangladesh. It is approved by the regulatory body, Civil Aviation of
Bangladesh, as the sole Ground Handler in Bangladesh to handle all foreign carriers flights
operating on commercial basis. It has sufficient ground handling equipments and experienced
manpower to handle all type of aircraft. All schedule/non-schedule operators may contact with
Page | 10

the following address to get the latest information/changes relating to Ground Handling at any
Airport in Bangladesh.

In-flight Duty Free

Biman Boutique: We are pleased to announce the launch of the Biman Boutique in-flight duty
free sales service beginning 1 March 2014. Biman Boutique offers you a range of internationally
famous brands of duty free items for your shopping convenience, all from the comfort of your
seat.Enjoy duty free shopping on board your next Biman flight.

In-flight Magazine

Bihanga: A warm welcome to all our customers, and we hope you enjoy reading our new inflight magazine called Bihanga, which is the name of a Bangladeshi bird, used in literature, and
very apt for Biman's renaisance. We hope you will find this interesting and informative.
Biman is a national symbol, and a source of pride for the country, and all Bangladeshis
worldwide, and we are looking to bring this to a new, international audience.We are looking to
completely transform Biman over the coming 2-3 years with many more customer oriented
products and services, combined with traditional Bangladeshi hospitality. We are also looking to
double the size of our fleet, and launch manu popular new routes. These are very exciting times
for Biman, so watch this space for many more good news stories. Have a safe and enjoyable ride
with our airlines.

Customer Satisfaction:
Consumers are individuals with likes and dislikes. When the preponderance of people in a
particular group feel one way or another about a product, service, entity, person, place or thing, it
is said to be a generalized consumer attitude that could affect the marketing of that person,
product or entity in positive or negative ways. Marketers strive to influence consumer attitudes,
and understanding the prevailing attitude is the first step to changing it if needed. For that reason
its very important to know customer satisfaction in every sphere.
Service Quality:
Service quality affects customer satisfaction by providing performance (real benefits).Service
quality is a focused evaluation that reflects the customers perception of specific dimension of
Page | 11

service: reliability, responsiveness, assurance Empathy, tangibles. Satisfaction on other hand is

more inclusive: it is influenced by perceptions of service quality, product quality, and price as
well as situational factors and personal factors.
Importance of customer satisfaction in Foreign Exchange:
Foreign exchange is a process, which is converted one national currency into another and
transferred money from one country to another country. Foreign exchange is that section of
economic science which deals with means and method by which right to wealth in one countrys
currency are covered into rights to wealth in terms of another countrys currency. It involved the
investigation of the method, which exchanges the currency of one country for that of another, the
causes which rented such exchange necessary the forms, which exchange may take and the
foreign exchanges are affected.
Bank is playing a major role in our economy no matter whether inside or outside of Bangladesh.
By foreign exchange bank can play a vital role in any economy. For that reason its very
important to give proper service to the customer in this sector.
Policies:
Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. has a policy to expand its business in future. Because of this,
Biman need more knowledge workers to establish it as a profitable organization. As I noted
earlier that Biman is going to buy new aircrafts in the following years. In those aircrafts, more
pilots and cabin crews are needed. At present, they have no exact planning that how many
employees they will recruit but they have the plan to expand the workforce.

Goals:
Biman Bangladesh Airline job description need not be limited to explaining the current situation,
or work that is currently expected; it may also set out goals for what might be achieved in future.
Biman Bangladesh Airline job description is a written statement of what the jobholder does, how
it is done, under what condition and why. Biman has job descriptions for its every designation. I
have included two job descriptions in my Appendix. Before recruiting any employee, Biman
outlines the activities of that particular job. For example, on the advertisement of a vacancy post
of Manger at Employment Section, Biman says that the Manager has to regulate all activities
related to recruit and select employees. The Manger has to ensure proper implementation of
recruitment procedures adopted by the Management from time to time. He/she has to integrate
the purpose of Employment Section with the overall mission of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines
Limited.
Limitations:
Page | 12

Prescriptive job descriptions may be seen as a hindrance in certain circumstances:

Job descriptions may not be suitable for some senior managers as they should have the
freedom to take the initiative and find fruitful new directions;

Job descriptions may be too inflexible in a rapidly-changing organization, for instance in

an area subject to rapid technological change;

Other changes in job content may lead to the job description being out of date;

1.
1.
Organization Image
An actually eligible candidate may not be interested to apply at the particular organization for the
particular position as I noted earlier. This can be happened because of the image of that
organization. Declining revenue, engaging in practices that result in a corrupted organization,
poor-quality of service or product and failing to meet the reasonable needs of employees are
some of the reasons of an organization of having lower image toward the organization. Biman
possesses most of those reasons to the people. Many people think that, if they can get a job to
Biman they can be a rich person very easily through earning money in a corrupted way. This can
be perceived from the junior Traffic Assistant (JTA) job. The image of Biman to people is not
good. But if any announcement of recruitments is given by Biman, thousands of CVs can be got.
It is contradictory that an organization which has a bad reputation gets much more CVs.
The main reason is, most of the people think that if they can get a job at Biman, they can become
rich through taking bribes. Most of the cases, this is right. After becoming a Public Limited
Company, the corruption of Biman has slightly lessened but not remarkably. The regulatory
system of Biman is weak although it is becoming strong day by day. It will take time. Many
times media publishes many negative things about Biman which has not occurred really. Media
publishes more from the reality that has made an negative image of Biman.

SWOT Analysis
Page | 13

Strengths:

The experienced manpower that it is really a good strength of Biman to lead the market.
This efficient manpower is mostly experienced in the field rather than the literary experts
of present days. So, if Biman can utilize the potentiality of this force effectively it will be
the emerging tiger of this arena.

Being the National flag carrier, Biman bears the symbol of our independence and
sovereignty which is definitely strength of the marketing of Biman.

All of the departments of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. are at one building that is
Balaka. This helps to take any important decision quickly.

During work load, employees come to complete the task from other departments

Weaknesses:

The main weakness of Biman is the miss management. The management of Biman could
never work independently since the government owned the organization with having
inevitable governmental influence in almost all sections and there is always pressure from
outside to entertain personal interest.

Governmental quota system makes Employment Section puzzled to recruit and select
people.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. does not possess any Human Resource information
System (HRIS) to recruit, select and make employee inventory. The entire database
related jobs are done through Microsoft Excel.

Opportunities:

Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. is the most reputed airline in Bangladesh. Thats why;
people want to do job at this organization. It can select properly eligible employees from
many numbers of employees. For example, there were130 posts of Junior Traffic
Assistance. After giving advertisement, 15,000 applications were received from
candidates. After securitization, almost 12,000 applicants were selected to take the exam.
So, Biman can choose proper persons from a great number of employees.

Bangladesh government possesses most of the shares of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd.
For this, many people of Bangladesh prefer this job because of high security.

Threats:
Page | 14

People have a negative notion toward Biman Bangladesh Airlines Ltd. Many people think
that it is a place where a person can become millionaire through corruption. So, honest
people can hardly be found during recruitment and selection.

Talented persons from these generations always try to find a job which gives handsome salary
with respectable position. In this case, Biman lags behind. Sometimes, eligible candidates do not
want to do the job because of not giving higher salary and frequent promotion.

Page | 15