Catherwood LibraryILR School

Bangladesh's state-owned airline, Biman, has announced plans to slash its workforce by June as part of a privatization initiative to cut losses. A senior Biman official told the BBC on Wednesday that more than 1,400 jobs would eventually be lost. In April the interim government decided to turn Biman into a public limited company by the middle of 2007. The airline is now so cash-strapped it is struggling to pay salaries and maintain its elderly fleet of aircraft. A shortage of aircraft forced it to stop flights to New York and other global cities in 2006. In recent years Biman has been beset by corruption allegations, especially over aircraft-leasing, with government-appointed middlemen usually named as the beneficiaries.