Fourth Dreamliner ‘Raj Hangsa’ to join Biman fleet on Sep 12

The fourth Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft is going to join the fleet of Biman Bangladesh Airlines on September 12.

Boeing will hand over the brand new aircraft named ‘Raj Hangsa’ to the national flag carrier of Bangladesh on 11 September.

A joint team comprising of representatives from Biman Bangladesh Airlines and the civil aviation and tourism ministry will go to Seattle in the United States of America to take delivery, according to Biman sources.

Earlier, the first and second Dreamliner Boeing 787-8, named ‘Akash Beena’ and ‘Hangsabalaka’ respectively, joined the Biman fleet in August and in December in 2018, while the third one – Gaangchil – arrived on July 25 this year.

In 2008, Biman Bangladesh Airlines made a $2.1 billion deal to buy 10 aircraft, including four Dreamliners from Boeing.

Raj Hangsa is the last in the series of Biman’s 10 new aircraft. Biman has bought this at a cost of around Tk1,000 crore, with financing from state-owned Sonali Bank.

At present, Biman has 16 aircraft, including leased and purchased ones. The national flag carrier currently operates on 7 domestic and 16 international routes, according to the Biman website.

In a recent move to expand its destinations, Biman resumed its direct Dhaka-Delhi flights in May this year. Flights on this route had been suspended since 2015.

It also has a plan to expand its routes to three other international destinations, including Guangzhou in China.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines came into being in January 1972 with a Douglas DC-3 aircraft. It eventually started operations after procuring two Fokker F-27s on 7 March 1972 with domestic flights to Chittagong and to Sylhet from its base in Dhaka.

Shortly after that, a Boeing 707 aircraft joined the airline’s fleet, allowing Biman to begin international flights.