Despite a sizable fleet and promising new flight routes in plans, the national flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines is grappling with an operational bottleneck due to a shortage of pilots.
Apart from conducting regular flights, the company has not been able to start flights on new routes or increase the number of flights on existing routes due to the shortage of airmen.
Currently, Biman has a total of 186 pilots, while it needs about 250 pilots.
Biman has recently issued recruitment circulars for hiring pilots. However, the exact number of hires has not been stated.
Earlier, Biman had advertised for 18 pilots for its Boeing 787 Dreamliners. But only 16 applications were submitted. After all the process, only 4 pilots joined. However, in just two months, 3 pilots left the airline.
In December 2022, the national flag carrier issued a recruitment notification for pilots for its Boeing 777, 787 and 737 model aircraft, soon after which outgoing Biman managing director Shafiul Azim joined the airline.
Before the recruitment process was over, Biman had already launched flights to Narita, Guangzhou, Chennai and Rome.
Biman has not yet completed the pilot recruitment process.
An aviator working at Biman told Bangladesh First on the condition of anonymity that pilots are losing interest in the company mainly because the financial package is not competitive.
Biman, however, feels that the financial package is not the only issue. There are more reasons adding its recruitment process is quite complex involving different stages. Airmen are employed on a permanent, contract basis and some other way.
Biman is recruiting cadet pilots to solve its pilot problems.
Moreover, if Biman buys 26 more aircraft by 2034, it will need at least 300 new pilots. Apart from Biman, other private airlines require about 40 pilots.
An official of Biman said on the condition of anonymity that it is difficult for a large airline like Biman to operate flights with so little number of pilots.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines General Manager (PR) Boshra Islam was reached out via WhatsApp over the issues, but no response was given.
