DHAKA-BASED UNITED AIRWAYS STARTS KUALA LUMPUR OPERATIONS

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, Dec 21 (Bernama) -- Another optimistic Bangladeshi private
carrier, United Airways (BD) Limited, is launching its inaugural flight to Kuala
Lumpur today, hoping to capture the workers and tourists traffic flow between
both countries.

The carrier, which started operations in 2007 and largely owned by the
Bangladeshi expatriate community, has added Kuala Lumpur as its new
international destination following its flights to Dubai and London earlier this
year.

"After completing about 100 flights, we have now decided to operate the
designated Kuala Lumpur sector twice a week," United's chairman and managing
director Tasbirul Ahmed Choudhury told Bernama.

"We are optimistic of this sector as there is a good amount of passenger
response and we are looking at about 70 per cent load factor," he said.

The airline is deploying its 155-seater MD-83 aircraft for the Dhaka-Kuala
Lumpur-Dhaka route, which is flying every Monday and Friday.

Choudhury is confident that United, which controls about 50 per cent of the
domestic passenger market and 25 per cent of the international traffic from
Dhaka, can gradually break into the overseas market by targeting the large
Bangladeshi expatriate community.

"Bangladesh is a US$5 billion airline market and its annual growth is about
6.35 per cent. We strongly believe we can capitalise on this if our flights are
on time and with good services," he said.

United will eventually introduce the Katmandu-Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur flight,
where a high density of passenger traffic is available.

-- BERNAMA