After a hiatus of over 17 years, the flag carrier of Bangladesh, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, is set to connect Dhaka (the country's capital) to Tokyo Narita with a direct service. The service will commence next month and will contribute to increased passenger connectivity.

The service

The new service will begin on Friday, September 1st, and as reported by Aviation24, the flight will be operated from the airline's hub in Dhaka Shahjalal International Airport (DAC) to Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT) using the airline's fleet of Boeing 787-8 aircraft. The outbound service will have flight number BG-376, and the return flight will carry the number BG-377.

Flight BG-376 has a departure time of 23:45 from DAC and will arrive in NRT the following morning at 09:15, clocking in a flight time of 6 hours and 30 minutes. The return flight, BG-377, has a scheduled departure time of 11:00 from NRT and will arrive in DAC at 15:00, with a flight time of seven hours.

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The service will run three days a week. However, due to the nature of the flight timings, BG-376 will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the return flight BG-377 will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The airline's website also states that discounted fares are being offered on this route with the promo code available on the website.

The passengers flying on this route will get to fly on the airline's fleet of 787s. Biman Bangladesh currently has four Boeing 787-8s in the fleet. The carrier's 787-8s are configured to carry a maximum of 271 seats, which are split into 24 seats in Business Class in a 2-2-2 layout and 247 seats in Economy Class in a 3-3-3 layout.

Airline growth

The airline has been growing its network and operation recently and expanding its reach into new markets.

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Biman Bangladesh Airline recently resumed its interline agreement with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad. Additionally, as reported by The Business Standard, the airline recently also signed a codeshare agreement with Gulf Air, which will provide the airline's passengers with more accessibility to the Middle East region.

Additionally, a little over a year ago, the airline resumed its operations at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ). This service is operated via Istanbul, where the flight lands purely for a technical stop in order to refuel the aircraft before flying onwards to Canada. The airline, at the moment, operates this service twice a week on Tuesdays and Saturdays using its fleet of Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

New aircraft

The airline at the moment has 21 aircraft, of which 16 are Boeing aircraft. However, this dominance of Boeing aircraft within the airline's fleet might change as recent reports suggest the airline is looking to order Airbus aircraft.

Photo: Tom Boon | Simple Flying

This comes as part of a high-level agreement formed between the governments of Bangladesh and the UK in order to strengthen the Bangladeshi aviation sector, trade, and investment relations. This agreement enables Bangladesh to avail of long-term credit that facilitates purchasing Airbus aircraft.

As such, reports indicate that the airline is set to order up to 10 Airbus A350 aircraft, which includes two A350F aircraft. Once delivered, these two jets will be the carrier's first dedicated freighter aircraft.

Source: Aviation24, The Business Standard.