Bangladesh RMG exporters fear losses due to problems at airport

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On a normal day, 800 tonnes of cargo used to be run through the two scanners, which was already difficult, Nurul Amin, managing director of freight forwarder Tower Freight, told a newspaper in the country.

The situation has turned more difficult for the shortage of air freight flights, be it dedicated ones or through the spare luggage space on board passenger planes, for increased demand for export.

However, in comparison to the pre-pandemic period, such flights have increased from 15 a day to 25 at present. Yet, they cannot ship all the cargo and nearly 200 tonnes of goods cannot be shipped in the absence of scanning equipment, said Amin.

Another complexity has arisen for new rules introduced last week, stipulating that exports can enter the airport 30 hours prior to the flight. Many a time, there were long queues of trucks sometimes going as far as Mymensingh and waiting for as long as two to three days to enter the airport, said Amin.

Trucks, even if they are carrying exports scheduled to fly within hours, are unable to jump the queue, leading to loading deadlines being missed and for which many flightshave taken off leaving behind their cargo, he said.

In such a time of crisis with the influx of cargo, four out of the airport's eight loading bays have been left inoperative, he said.

Installation work of new scanners is slow while two new explosives scanners provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency are presently awaiting European Union validation following a 15-month delay, he added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)