Stop victimising the passengers

The ongoing row between Biman Bangladesh Airlines and its online ticket sales partner is causing untold sufferings for hundreds of intended passengers. For almost a week now, passengers have been unable to buy tickets online—which is more convenient and also safer during the pandemic—from Biman's website or from other online platforms that usually sell its tickets. Instead, they are having to physically go to Biman sales centres to buy tickets, which is both time-consuming and risky as crowding may lead to the passengers contracting the coronavirus.

The disagreement between Biman and Travelshop Limited—the exclusive service provider to Biman for selling its tickets online—has led to the latter suspending Biman's services. According to the managing director and CEO of Biman, since being hired on a temporary basis in 2019, Travelshop has "repeatedly failed at various stages in the full implementation of the expected activities." Finally, from August 10 this year, the company stopped providing relevant services to Biman "in a completely unreasonable and unethical manner", while creating "confusion in people's minds".

Contradicting his statement, the chief operating officer of Travelshop said that the company had sent at least 20 letters to Biman in the last 17 months to get their dues, worth Tk 37 lakh. Not only did Biman not pay the dues, but it neglected to even respond to the letters—which is what led to the current situation of the suspension of Travelshop's services.

Whatever the reason may be, the fact that intended passengers of our national flag carrier are being victimised in this row is completely unacceptable and humiliating. And for that, whoever is responsible must be held accountable. The authorities need to urgently investigate the matter and find out who is telling the truth here and which side is spouting lies—or if both sides are at fault. Moreover, while that is being done, passengers cannot be made to suffer like this, nor should they be forced to risk their health and safety by physically buying Biman tickets. Therefore, we suggest that some sort of an alternative arrangement be made for Biman tickets to be sold online on a temporary basis, while all this is being sorted. At a time when the e-commerce sector of the country is flourishing and nearly every transaction can be made online thanks to digital services, continuation of this situation cannot be tolerated.