Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) requested Biman Bangladesh Airlines to improve air cargo handling services at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to facilitate RMG exports.

BGMEA President Faruque Hassan made the request during his meeting with Managing Director and CEO of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Dr. Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal, at the latter’s office in Dhaka on July 8. BGMEA Vice President Md. Shahidullah Azim, Director Tanvir Ahmed and former Director Md. Ashikur Rahman (Tuhin) also attended the meeting. They also visited the cargo village at the airport to observe the current situation of cargo handling services at the airport.

In the meeting Faruque Hassan stressed the need for increasing the number of explosive detection scanner at the airport and regularly carrying out maintenance of the existing two EDS as one of them often remains out of service due to proper maintenance. Exported cargoes have to go through security scanning at the third country’s airports due to lack of sufficient number of scanning machines, which results in delay in air shipment and is not good for Bangladesh’s image, he added.

The BGMEA President also requested for improving the cargo handling situation at the cargo village which has a shortage of ground handling staff and required equipment and machinery.

He said that the space at the cargo village is not sufficient to store export-import goods properly, and requested the authority to ensure that goods are not left out in the open at the cargo village.

He also called for taking steps to make loading-unloading of RMG cargoes faster and properly stack them in the cargo shed in a proper order so that export-import goods can be found out easily and released quickly.

He further urged not to charge demurrage fees for the delay in releasing goods due to stacking of goods haphazardly at the cargo village.

Ziauddin Ahmed, Director, Administration and HR and Director, Procurement and Logistics Support; Air Cadre. Mahbub Jahan Khan (Retd), Director, Corporate Planning and Training and Chief Financial Officer; Md. Siddiqur Rahman, Director, Customer Service and Director, Marketing and Sales; Dr. Moktar Hossain, General Manager, Administration and Company Secretary; and Rashedul Karim, General Manager, Cargo, Biman Bangladesh Airlines were present at the meeting.