Origin of the Report

Scope of the Report

Background on Biman

Brand Portfolio: The core service of Biman is transportation service. It has two categories of passenger services-domestic and international. Biman offers 16 domestic and 102 international flights. It provides different types of services such as passenger service, cargo service, mail service, catering, and training for the Biman staff. There are different services provide in different flights such as a two-class service (J and Y) is operated on its widebody airliners and a single class service on the smaller aircraft. The Maslin Executive Class cabin on its Airbus A310s is set up in a 2-3-2 configuration while the setup on the Douglas DC-10-30s is a more roomy 2-2-2 configuration. The economy class cabins are set up in a typical 2-5-2 configuration. The Douglas DC-10-30s are equipped with a projector in each cabin while the Airbus A310s have monitors that drop down from the ceiling below the luggage racks in the center of the aircraft. Promotional activities: Biman has no particular promotional activities. There is an official website of Biman that provides flight related information. But its not regularly updated. Besides the website, they dont have any media communications. We didnt find any print Ad or TVC. But there is a certain group of customer that prefers flying on Biman since the cost is

comparatively lower than other competitors. Though Biman itself doesnt rely on promotional activities, some travel agencies suggest customers to choose Biman. Currently Biman is running some promotional activities because of Hajj. Biman enjoyed monopoly business when there was no competitor in airlines business in Bangladesh. Now competitors are coming in market with better service and good promotional activities. Brand Exploratory: Brand Awareness: People are choosing other airlines rather choosing Biman both in local and international route. One of the reasons is their poor promotional activities. Though flying by Biman is cheap still the competitors such United Airways and GMG doing much better for their promotional activities.

Position Mapping: We have used two criteria to draw the position map for Biman comparing other airline companies. The companies are positioned in respect to their Price and Quality.

Brand Recognition & Recall: People have negative perception about Biman because of number of reasons. They are failed to provide quality service to newly emerged customers. Moreover, the aircrafts they are using are backdated and expired. So flying by Biman has become a life threatening issue. Along with the problem since they dont have regular promotional activities, people cant distinguish\the Brand. Brand Image & Performance: Since the performance of Biman is very disappointing, the brand image is declining very fast. People dont feel safe and comfort flying over Biman. Corruptions and lack of accountability of Biman have also spoiled its image. Brand Associations and Brand personality: Brand associations are those things that consumers try to relate with the brand. There are certain things that come to our mind when we talk about Biman such as local brand, delayed flight, low priced, poor service quality, corruption. Brand association is

closely related to brand personality; what a brand is (about), what comes to the consumers mind when they think about a brand. Recommendations: Biman Bangladesh Airlines Audit has disclosed that their Brand image is in a dying stage. There are some important factors that we should consider to recover the brand image: Management

Running an airline profitably in today's fiercely competitive world requires concentrated focus and skills. The Biman needs to confront the challenges for its own survival and the government should be there as the safety net only. Restructuring, if properly implemented, should keep the national flag carrier afloat in the highly competitive aviation industry. Corruption Indeed, corruption and mismanagement forced Biman to sink deep since the eighties. It had selected wrong aircraft for its fleet, added wrong routes to its network, and had wrong people managing it. For Biman to be profitable there has to be a suitable strategy to compete with other airlines. The management must have the freedom to plan and execute and, if Biman has to remain in the public sector, the board members should be carefully chosen so that they are committed and spare enough time to give policy guidelines, oversee the affairs and hold the management accountable. Service Quality To build up the brand image, Biman have to come up with better service quality. The civil aviation authority should set acceptably high-standards for local airline start-ups and allow any available routes they wish to operate on. Biman's route structures should also be planned according to capacity and market demand and flights must be scheduled properly to reach that market. Promotion:

Promotional activities have to be launched based on print media, TVC, and radio. They should also adopt sell promotions, public relations and sponsoring. Reasonable Price:

Fast and cheap mobility is a pre-requisite for the economic development of any country. In a country like Bangladesh, where cheap and high skilled educated labor is found in abundance, provision of cheap air travel is quite possible. Surprisingly, Though the ticket price is cheaper than other local Airline companies, Biman's airfares are still higher than they are in the US and many other developed countries.