Bangladesh's ailing national carrier will drop Biman from its name under a restructuring plan by the country's military-backed emergency government, an airline official said Sunday. "Bangladesh Biman Airlines will be named Bangladesh Airlines when it is made a public limited company later this month," company spokesman Khan Mosharraf Hossain said.
The restructuring plan was flagged in April, along with a decision to cut nearly 4,000 jobs within months. The national carrier has been known as Biman since its started in 1972 with a vintage Dakota DC-3 aircraft, less than a month after the South Asian nation won independence from Pakistan.
But the carrier has bled financially despite a series of rescue plans. The latest effort comes after Biman posted a record loss of more than 120 million dollars in the year to June 2006 on higher than expected fuel and maintenance costs, despite cutting eight loss-making international flights and four domestic routes.
The current government took over in January after the president declared a state of emergency and cancelled controversial polls following months of political turmoil.
Led by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed, the interim cabinet has vowed to carry out sweeping political, economic and electoral reforms before holding elections in late 2008.