Air Astra on track to begin domestic flights in Sept 2022

Dhaka: Air Astra is currently preparing to undergo International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA).

This makes the airline the first ever to undergo such training before launching commercial flight operations, said the airline in a press release.

On June 13, the airline started its five-day IOSA Airline Auditor Training at its own training center in the capital.

There are a total of 17 participants at the training including Imran Asif (CEO and Accountable Manager), Capt Farhat Jamil (Head of Flight Operations and Training), Ghazi Mahmud Iqbal (Head of Engineering/CAMO), Md Shafiqul Alam (Head of Quality Assurance), Zafor Uzzaman (Head of Ground Operations and DGR), Capt Khalid Shams (Chief of Safety), and Hasib ul Alam (Head of Airline Security).

The IOSA programme is an internationally recognised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline. All IATA members are IOSA registered and must remain registered to maintain their IATA membership.

Initially set back by post-Covid aircraft leasing market uncertainties hindering the airline’s plans to launch by Q1 2022, Air Astra has secured 3x ATR72-600 aircraft on lease and is on track to commence commercial flight operations across the domestic network in Bangladesh in September, 2022.

French-built ATR72-600 aircraft are the most advanced turboprop aircraft in production today.

By end-2023 Air Astra plans to induct 5x more ATR72-600 aircraft bringing its fleet size to 8 aircraft.