The government has held a meeting with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) with the aim of developing the country’s civil aviation and tourism sectors, suppressing ticket syndicates and strengthening technical cooperation.
On Monday, IATA’s Regional Vice President Mr. Shejdon Hee paid a courtesy call on Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Afroza Khanam, MP and State Minister M. Rashiduzzaman Millat, MP at the Bangladesh Secretariat.
At the meeting, the IATA Regional Vice President said that the organization is ready to provide all-out cooperation in the development of the country’s civil aviation sector in light of the current government’s election manifesto. At the same time, IATA expressed interest in providing technical assistance to upgrade the Bangladesh Airlines Technical Center (BATC) of Biman Bangladesh Airlines to a modern institution with international standards.
Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Afroza Khanam said that the government has taken effective steps to curb ticket syndicates and IATA’s technical assistance will play an important role in this regard. She said that the current government’s stance against any kind of syndicate in the aviation sector is ‘zero tolerance’.
State Minister M. Rashiduzzaman Millat said that as part of environmental protection, a separate clause related to carbon emission reduction has been added to the Civil Aviation Ordinance. In addition, the government is working to ensure Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). He further said that necessary initiatives will also be taken to adopt the Montreal Protocol 2014 to curb crime in the air.
During this time, various aspects of future cooperation between the government and IATA were discussed in detail to develop the country’s tourism industry, expand international air connectivity and increase the capacity of the aviation sector.c
