Biman Bangladesh To Order 10 Airbus A350s

They used to have A310's in their fleet. So, Airbus is not quite new to them.

Not sure how well this will go, not sure how well (or not) the airline operates, not sure when or if I will ever fly them. Apparently Biman used to operate A310s. And apparently they did fly to New York back in the day (with different stops on the way)... using DC-10s.

Airlines from many countries including some of the big European carriers (home of Airbus) intentionally buy both Airbus and Boeing products in order to not appear to be taking sides.
Delta is one of the few very large airlines in the world to have only Airbus widebodies on order while American and United do the same with Boeing widebodies. In terms of total numbers of aircraft, American is the largest Airbus operator in the world but Delta will overtake them this year. There is a clear political dimension in airplane orders and US carriers probably feel more confident in their ability to justify their fleet spending decisions than in many countries.
For an airline the size of Biman, having two models of new generation widebodies will be costly, esp. if they opt for the A350-900. The -1000 is a large aircraft for a country the size of Bangladesh but it is very efficient - more so than the 777.
Either model of the A350 can pretty well serve any city in the world nonstop from Bangladesh that Biman might want to serve.

There will be lots of airplane order news coming from Paris this week so this should be a fun week to be an av fan.

DO NOT fly Biman if you're a vlogger!
Just look at what happened to youtuber RORY DING (YT RoryDing Travels) at Dubai Airport last week when he tried boarding on his fully paid business class ticket. The word 'appalling' does not even begin to describe Biman's behaviour. If it weren't captured on film, you probably wouldn't believe it.

With national carriers, politics comes in when purchasing aircrafts.

I’ve gotta say, of all the small South Asian flag carriers, Biman is the most impressive in terms of new planes. SriLankan cancelled its A350 order and PIA had old 777s.

The A350s are part of complete package to develop the aerospace industry of Bangladesh. The ministers agreed in England not only to buy the planes, but also get support for establish crew training facilities including flight-, cabin-, and maintenance crews. Further more the cargo business supposed to be developed also, therefor the two A350F.
Bangladesh is heavy involved in the fashion industry. There is demand for air freight. By getting a complete package solution from England the Ministers of Bangladesh try to transfer know how to improve Biman, the national airline.

@ Tim
Don't get your point on "The -1000 is a large aircraft for a country the size of Bangladesh."
Bangladesh is the 8th most populated nation in the world. Don't think they would have any problem to fill the -1000's.

Most travellers on Biman from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia etc are blue collared labourers, and of course white collar jobs too. For this YouTuber to want to travel from Dubai to Dammam via Dhaka, which would otherwise take an hour would raise some eyebrows.

The Biman employee/ Manager who should have looked carefully into this without the verbal outrage and emphasis of the USD $5000 fine (as mentioned in the video) was more concerned about his job and repercussions should this turn out to be something illegal and having the fine imposed on the airline, because of wanting to travel the long way.

Is his behaviour justified, absolutely not, but you have to understand the mindset of the situation and the route being taken. DXB-DMM vs DXB-DAC-DMM. Airlines deny boarding all the time, this one was purely out of the strange nature of the route and the final destination involved and the supposedly pending fine imposed. Still very poorly handled.

Travel demand has never been directly correlated to population, not in the US or any "developed" country and is not from Bangladesh.

As has been noted, Bangladesh is a huge fashion market and Biman undoubtedly sees the opportunity to use A350-1000s which have great cargo capabilities as well as industry-leading passenger economics.

With the new international terminal opening at Dhaka Airport, Biman is poised for growth and wouldn't be surprised if the FAA category changes after the terminal opens either late this year but most probably next year.

Marco, airline vlogging has been a phenomenon for decades. Of all the people who encounter vloggers on a regular basis, it's frontline airline staff(!), like this manager. It irrelevant what the routing is! If the customer has paid (which the vlogger did) and has the correct authorizations in place (which the vlogger did), and has not been flagged (the vlogger wasn't), then this power-tripping manager cannot deny boarding. And don't get me started on his aggressive behavior!! There is no justification and excusing this, no matter how hard some try.

The problem with most of these smaller airlines is they have no credit card or airline partners and even so they are usually not cheap - more expensive than other options.

For a while I only remember them being able to fly long haul with their DC-10. They were one of the last operators with passengers.

Correction Lucky! Biman does operate 2 or 3x weekly scheduled flights to Toronto and back. However, flights to YYZ have a technical stop at IST. Return flight to DAC is non-stop though.

Was in no way justifying the duty manager's behaviour. It was where this was globally (and mind you in Dubai of all places) but the airline being operated was from Bangladesh. It might have caused concern had he to do the same on a routing DXB-MAA-DAM. The unnecessary fines involved may be the very reason for all this fiasco. t's the mindset of the airlines in that region

And vloggers might be treated as influencers by their audiences but at the end of the day they are just passengers on a flight. Maybe not Sam Chui lol

Initially, Biman were planning to replace its existing narrowbody aged 737-800s by A320neo or A321neo either.
In actually, Biman business strategy in not same as other airlines. Biman main money maker routes are in middle east carrying millions of workers employed in the middle east countries and Hajj pilgrimages (seasonal and regular). This where Biman management are eyeing to increase flight frequency. Recently CAA Bangladesh had an agreement with Saudi CAA that Biman will operate 50 flights per week from 21 currently. Narrow body aircrafts are not ideal Instrument for these routes and the need more wide bodies. Adding 6-8 T7 are just fine but Government of Bangladesh wants to diversify the manufacturer to keep the Balance recently issues devolved in geopolitics. Considering the government concern, Aligned with Airbus is a wise decision.

Biman's fleet planning dept. is manned by people who are not exactly star talent in their field of work. They basically follow orders from up top on which mfr. to favor which (being a govt. airline) is a political decision. Unlike other profitable airlines in Asia who are laser-focused on seat-mile costs, maintenance and pilot training costs etc. When you have a large B787 fleet, trying to buy Airbus, just because they made a big sales pitch and promises were made to Macron - is foolish. Re-training pilots on the new Airbus cockpits is going to be rather high, unless decision was made (again up top) to ditch Boeing to go all out for an Airbus fleet. Best decision IMO (least costly) is to buy B787-10s to avoid pilot re-training when the B77W get to be too old which serve Gulf routes. This is what S'pore Airlines, Etihad and many other airlines did. Airbus aircraft don't cost any less for similar specs, but they have lower supply backlogs (at least for A330 NEOs).

I wouldn't bet on Airbus promises "to develop the aerospace industry of Bangladesh". We know how far these promises go - everything is transactional and not based on any type of "goodwill". Besides - Biman Management need to learn to operate Biman as a profit making outfit, and not try any kind of "aerospace improvement" activity which is not directly involved in carrying passengers for a profit. All over the globe, cargo operation involves refurbished/converted old MD-11s, B767F's and B777F's which are used by reputable airlines. I don't know why we should pay hard-earned foreign exchange for two brand new A350F's. A converted 767-300ER freighter (even used by large freight carriers like UPS, FedeEx, Amazon and Atlas) at $20-$25 million each is a fraction (1/8th) of the cost of these new A350F's which cost $2 to $3 Billion. The amount of corruption in Biman is crazy and horrendous.

All over the globe, cargo operation involves refurbished/converted old MD-11s, B767F's and B777F's which are used by reputable freight carriers. I don't know why Bangladesh should pay hard-earned foreign exchange for two brand new A350F's which IMO is a huge waste. A converted 767-300ER freighter (even used by large freight carriers like UPS, FedeEx, Amazon and Atlas) at $20-$25 million each is a fraction (1/8th) of the cost of these new A350F's which cost $2 to $3 Billion each. Will the boxes of shirts and pants being carried mind too much if they go to the EU on old aircraft vs. new? The amount of corruption in Biman is crazy and horrendous. Buying new freight aircraft makes little sense.

They lost their NYC (JFK) slot. Which they are in the process of getting back. But they do fly to YYZ (Toronto) from DAC (Dhaka) 3 times a week via a technical stop in Istanbul to refuel.

Most of the full service airlines like Thai and SQ are similar being high priced, as are smaller national airlines in Asia. National airlines like Biman or Sri Lankan lack the expertise to launch LCCs, whether medium or long haul. So LCC's like Air Asia variants or JetStar variants are our only options.