Biman Bangladesh Airlines - Management

Management

The airline was wholly owned by the Bangladeshi government through the Bangladesh Biman Corporation since its inception. In 1977, Biman was converted into a public sector corporation which afforded Biman limited autonomy, led by a government-appointed board of directors. The authorised share capital was increased to BDT 2 billion in 1987, and Biman was transformed into a public limited company, the largest in Bangladesh, in 2007.

During the late 1980s, Hossain Mohammad Ershad, President of Bangladesh at the time, served as president of Biman. After an early period of expansion and growth, Biman entered an era of nose-diving profits and slow growth, exacerbated by incompetent and corrupt management, who padded purchases, falsified repair bills, and kept unprofitable routes in operation for political reasons. Research conducted in 1996 found that Biman had 5,253 non-flying personnel, 30 percent more than Singapore Airlines, a carrier who operated a fleet almost ten times the size of Biman's. The report described Biman as "poorly managed, overstaffed, undercapitalized, and subject to excessive political interference in its day-to-day management."

In the 1992–93 fiscal year, accounts under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism revealed that BDT 22 million in tax was not paid to the government. The audit carried out in 1999, also showed that Biman was owed BDT 2.2 million by travel agents from the proceeds of ticket sales, most likely with the collusion of Biman officials. Additionally, BDT 2.4 million was overpaid as incentive commissions to the sales agents in violation of Biman policies. In 2007, the caretaker government launched an anti-corruption drive which saw the arrest of Shamim Iskander, the brother of ex-prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia and a former Biman flight engineer, on multiple corruption charges. This was shortly followed by the forced retirement of 35 other employees and officials, some of whom were close aides of Iskander.