Can 35 new aircraft alone make BD an aviation hub or will it be a waste of money?

News of aircraft purchasing deals has been making headlines one after another in recent weeks. Agreements or negotiations have reportedly been concluded for 25 Boeing and 10 Airbus aircraft. Expanding a fleet is undoubtedly good news for any country's air travel sector. The real question, however, is whether Bangladesh can become an international aviation hub simply by acquiring a line of new planes. Or, without integrated infrastructure development, will this enormous investment ultimately amount to money poured into the sea?

A simple analogy may help. A horse-drawn carriage needs a strong, spirited horse, but it equally needs a sturdy, smooth and durable carriage. If either one falls short, the carriage will not move an inch. In the aviation equation, the new aircraft are the horses, while the airport's ground services and infrastructure are the carriage. No matter how costly or swift the horse, the journey will fail if the carriage is broken.

The reality at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) stands in stark contrast to these ambitions. At present, there are only eight baggage belts for arriving passengers. It is common for 10 to 12 flights to land within a span of just 20 to 30 minutes. The first eight aircraft get a belt, while passengers from the remaining flights are left standing for hours on the terminal floor or clutching their trolleys. For weary migrant workers returning home and for foreign visitors alike, this is a deeply unpleasant experience.


Complaints are a daily occurrence: long queues at immigration counters, too few baggage checking rows, broken or inadequate baggage belts, unclean toilets, a lack of seating places in the terminal, and a shortage of trolleys. However excellent the service a passenger receives in the air, if two or three hours are lost clearing immigration and collecting luggage on the ground, that passenger will not want to return to this airport.

Some may argue that the Third Terminal is awaiting launch and will offer world-class modern facilities. But how much attention is being paid to the most critical problem? The Third Terminal may be vast, but it will still be served by the same single runway. Because of that one runway, flights already circle in the air or wait for hours to land and take off. Once the Third Terminal is fully operational and more domestic and foreign airlines are welcomed, how severe will this congestion in the skies become?

Holding in the air because a flight cannot land means burning away litres of expensive fuel. With fuel prices as high as they are in the international market, no profit-minded airline will want to keep circling and bearing needless losses. If schedules cannot be maintained and fuel is wasted, world-class airlines will prefer to avoid Dhaka altogether.


Another major invisible barrier to becoming a hub is the monopoly in ground handling. One will not find a successful aviation hub anywhere in the world where the entire ground handling service is held hostage by a single agent. No aviation hub supports a ground handling monopoly. Without competition, service quality declines, turnaround times increase, and baggage is regularly lost or damaged. To protect their international reputation, many airlines do not want to operate in a market dominated by a single provider.

Setting aside Western countries, consider our neighbours. At Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, three major ground handling agencies operate. Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport has three, Thailand's Suvarnabhumi Airport has three, and Singapore's Changi Airport has two strong agencies. It is this healthy competition that allows them to clear aircraft quickly, send them back into the sky and maintain world-class service.

Beyond ground services, another extremely sensitive and serious issue is the airport's security system. Owing to security lapses, the number of unfortunate and unpleasant incidents at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport is far from small. Unless airport security is upgraded to fully modern, world-class, computerised digital technology, not only the safety of ordinary passengers but also the very existence of multimillion-dollar aircraft will be placed under serious threat. It is only natural that no globally renowned airline will want to bring its valuable aircraft to an airport that repeatedly makes international headlines for security failures. To build an international aviation hub, the security system must be raised to a level at which any airline and international organisation in the world can place complete trust in it.

Therefore, investing billions of dollars in a few dozen modern aircraft will not turn Bangladesh into an aviation hub overnight. Alongside purchasing aircraft, it is essential to guarantee passenger safety and carry out the basic infrastructure reforms that spare passengers any hardship. This requires a farsighted and integrated master plan.