Bangladesh’s Regent Airways to return with ATR turbo-props

Regent Airways (RX, Dhaka) plans to restart operations with Avions de Transport Régional turbo-props after selling off its two B737-800s, says chief executive Ashish Roy Choudhury.

He told The Bangladesh Post the airline, which has been grounded since March 2020 due to COVID-19, already had buyers for its only two B737-800s. One of them, S2-A10 (msn 28644), is in storage at Dhaka International Airport, according to the ch-aviation fleets advanced data, while the other, S2-AIV (msn 29884), is currently undergoing maintenance at Hyderabad Int’l.

Choudhury said prices for the two B737-800s had already been fixed. The company had informed the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) about this six months ago but had received no response. “We already have customers to sell the aircraft. After selling these aircraft and paying the bank debt, we will bring three ATR-500s to resume our flight operations. But despite confirming to the CAAB regarding the matter, they have not responded as yet.” Choudhury in February said Regent Airways planned to resume operations by March 2021 with two leased ATR72s for domestic operations. The carrier also owns two DHC-8-Q300s, the ch-aviation fleets history data shows.

As previously reported, CAAB in February this year said it would issue a tender to auction off aircraft abandoned at Dhaka International Airport by mid-2021 after their operators failed to respond to a call last year to remove them. Should the auction fail, the CAAB, which operates the airport directly, said it would simply remove them for part-out and scrapping.” If they want to auction, let them take the value of the debt we have,” responded Choudhury. However, it was doubtful the aircraft would fetch a fair price on auction, he said, and warned of legal action should CAAB go ahead with the auction without consultation.

Meanwhile, the fate of 12 aircraft still standing abandoned at Dhaka International Airport continues to be unclear with some of the aircraft owners having applied to halt their auctioning off by CAAB.

According to Dhaka International Airport officials, those stored include eight aircraft of defunct United Airways (4H, Dhaka); two of stricken Regent Airways; one of closed GMG Airlines (Z5, Dhaka); and one aircraft of the closed-down Royal Bengal Airline (4A, Dhaka). Except for the Regent Airways aircraft, all of them have been in the same position for the last eight years, reports The Bangladesh Post.

According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, the eight company-owned aircraft of United Airways, which went out of business in March 2016, include:

• two ATR72-200s: S2-AFE (msn 385), and S2-AFU (msn 402);
• five MD-83s: S2-AEH (msn 49937), S2-AEI (msn 53183), S2-AEJ (msn 53189), S2-AEU (msn 49790), and S2-AFV (msn 53377);
• one DHC-8-100 S2-AES (msn 363).

GMG Airlines, which went out of business in 2012, still has one company-owned MD-82, S2-ADO (msn 53481) stored at Dhaka.

Airport Director AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan told The Bangladesh Post: “We are trying to fuel up the process of (the) auction. As those aircraft are owned by other organisations, and they have mortgages and other issues, we are caring for all of these. We will contact those airlines again before starting the auction process. Even then, if there is no response, we will go through the auction process as per the rules of procedure.”

A new board of United Airways in June requested CAAB to hold off auctioning its abandoned aircraft in order to recover monies owed in unpaid fines. Board chairperson, Kazi Wahidul Alam, pointed out that the company did not own the aircraft. He said the airline had requested permission to inspect and audit the aircraft but had not received a response from CAAB. He said the company was working to restart operations.

A spokesperson for GMG Airlines said they had buyers for their only Dash-8, but were also awaiting a response from the regulator.