DHAKA: Bangladesh’s second private passenger airline launched yesterday in a fast-growing market, an official said.
United Airways’ first flight took off from the capital Dhaka for the northeastern city of Sylhet, company director Ferdous Imam said.
The market was attractive to private operators since the scrapping of a number of routes by state-run Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Imam said.
The company, owned by expatriate Bangladeshis living in Britain, have bought a Dash-8 aircraft and will add another Dash-8 in late July followed by two more Fokker100 by August, he added.
“We will now fly to Chittagong and Sylhet six days a week. But we have already got an international licence. So our target is to fly to the southern cities of China and the Gulf,” he said.
Bangladesh’s air traffic to the Gulf and China countries has seen a huge increase in recent months, he added. China pipped India as Bangladesh’s main import destination in 2005 while nearly 3mn Bangladeshis now live and work in the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
United Airways is Bangladesh’s second private passenger airline. At present, GMG is the sole private operator and flies to domestic and regional destinations. – AFP |
