Dhaka : Travel Link Worldwide Ltd, a leading travel agency in the United Kingdom, has been among the top five British-Bangladeshi agents in the country who have achieved Biman Bangladesh Airlines' sales targets.

As part of their agreement, the agency was offered an incentive trip to any destination in Biman's network with the airline's officials. Hence, the former visited Bangkok and later Bangladesh while going back to the UK.

During their visit to Bangladesh, the agency met with Biman's management including the MD and CEO to associate, and share ideas for improving travel services between the UK and Bangladesh.

At the meeting, Travel Link also addressed certain issues that agencies in the UK are facing with regards to agency debit/credit memos. This has been an ongoing issue due to a technical error which is not a fault of the agent.

The travel agencies in the UK have been suffering from huge amount of losses due to Biman's staggering admin fees of USD 50.

Sami Sanaullah, CEO of Travel Link Worldwide Ltd, said this while talking to The Bangladesh Monitor at the latter's office during his trip to Bangladesh.

"Such an excessive amount of admin fee must be revised under the current circumstances of the UK market," he added.

It may be mentioned here, other airlines only charge admin fees of USD 10-15, making Biman's fees, by far, the highest among all other airlines in the world.

"During our meeting with the Biman management, the airline's MD and CEO assured us the matter will be dealt with fairly," shared Sanaullah.

Travel Link was established by Sanaullah and six other British-Bangladeshi entrepreneurs in 1993. This year, the agency achieved a new milestone of stepping into its 30th year of operations, rejoiced Sanaullah.

Asked about the British-Bangladeshi diaspora's preferred choice of airline for travel to Bangladesh, Sanaullah claimed, Biman comes first.

Biman is the top choice for Sylhetis travelling on the London-Sylhet route and Sylhetis are the highest in number within the British-Bangladeshi diaspora, further mentioned the CEO of Travel Link.

Also, the main market between Bangladesh and the UK is the London-Sylhet route, further claimed Sanaullah.

There is great demand on the route with the fares going up to even GBP 1600 in Economy Class during the peak season while the number of Business Class passengers are on the rise too, he also said.

It may be mentioned here, another reason behind Biman's high passenger demand on London/Manchester-Dhaka/Sylhet routes is, of course, the fact the airline is the sole operators on the routes.

"Manchester flights still have some capacity left to fill as the majority passengers of Biman are from London or nearby," expressed Sanaullah.

Biman has four flights to London and Manchester each. Of them, only three flights to Manchester are doing well while one is not. On the other hand, all the four flights of Biman to London are doing great.

Hence, there has been discussions to move that "not-doing-so-well" flight from Manchester to the burgeoning London, shared the CEO of the top five agents of Biman in the UK.