Biman Bangladesh Ends Its All-Boeing Era, Set to Sign for 4 A350s and 6 A321neos in October

Biman's current fleet, by both outlets' accounts, consists of 19 aircraft: six Boeing 787 Dreamliners, four Boeing 777-300ERs, four Boeing 737-800s, and five De Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprops. Every passenger jet in that lineup traces back to Boeing or, in the case of the turboprops, Bombardier's now-De Havilland Canada regional aircraft business — Airbus has never had a presence in Biman's mainline fleet.

That makes the pending order more than a routine capacity top-up. It would hand Airbus a foothold in a market Boeing has effectively owned since Bangladesh's national airline was founded in 1972, and it comes at a moment when Biman has been on an unusually aggressive ordering spree with its incumbent supplier. Over the course of 2026, the airline signed deals for 25 Boeing aircraft — 13 787-10 Dreamliners, two more 787-9 Dreamliners, and 10 737-8 Max jets — in transactions that Air Data News values at roughly $6.4 billion combined across the April and September agreements. Layer the prospective 10-jet Airbus order on top of that, and Biman's total committed future fleet reaches 35 aircraft: 19 widebodies and 16 narrowbodies, more than tripling the size of its current operation.

Why Airbus, and Why Now

Neither outlet reported a formal explanation from Biman for splitting its widebody and narrowbody business between two rival manufacturers for the first time, but the minister's comments, as relayed by Aviation A2Z, pointed to a practical rationale: delivery slots at both Boeing and Airbus are backed up for years, and locking in Airbus capacity now — even for aircraft that will not arrive until the next decade — was itself the point. Millat was quoted as saying the long delivery timeline was one reason the government was moving ahead with the purchase years before the aircraft are actually required.

That timeline is long by any airline's standard. Both outlets reported that deliveries under the prospective Airbus order would not begin until 2033, continuing on through 2036 or 2037. In other words, Biman is contracting today for aircraft that will not enter service until roughly a decade from now — a bet on where the airline expects to be flying, and how large a fleet it expects to operate, well into the 2030s.

For an airline that currently flies a 19-aircraft fleet, a pipeline of 35 incoming jets — split now across two manufacturers for the first time — represents one of the most significant fleet-planning bets in Biman's history, even if the payoff is a decade away.

An Airline Still Short of Aircraft Today

The forward-looking scale of the Airbus and Boeing commitments stands in contrast to Biman's more immediate problem: a shortage of aircraft to fly right now. Both Air Data News and Aviation A2Z reported that the carrier is separately trying to lease up to 10 aircraft to add near-term capacity, and that as of their reporting, those leasing efforts had not yet succeeded. That gap underscores why Biman's fleet strategy looks the way it does — a carrier simultaneously scrambling for extra lift this year while locking in jets it will not receive until 2033 at the earliest.

Aviation A2Z also reported that Biman is weighing new route launches that would make use of the expanded future fleet, including service to Sydney, an expanded presence in Japan, and a potential resumption of New York service, contingent on the outcome of an ongoing aviation audit. The airline's leadership has also flagged the Middle East as an area of potential growth, a market where Bangladesh's large expatriate workforce already generates substantial demand for flights to and from Gulf states.

What the Order Would Mean for Airbus and Boeing

For Airbus, breaking into Biman's fleet — even with a relatively modest 10-jet order — is a symbolic win in South Asia, a region where Boeing has historically dominated flag-carrier fleets even as Airbus has made inroads with low-cost and private carriers elsewhere in the subcontinent. The A350-900 and A321neo are both mature, widely ordered platforms, and their addition to Biman's fleet would require the airline to stand up new maintenance, training and spare-parts infrastructure for a manufacturer it has never operated before — a nontrivial undertaking for a carrier of Biman's size.

For Boeing, the diversification is a reminder that even loyal, decades-long customers are willing to hedge when delivery backlogs stretch out for years regardless of manufacturer. Biman's 2026 Boeing orders — the 787-10s, 787-9s and 737-8s — remain intact and are, by dollar value, far larger than the prospective Airbus deal. But the fact that Bangladesh's flag carrier felt it needed to secure Airbus delivery slots as insurance against its own long Boeing queue says something about how tight aircraft production capacity has become industry-wide.

A Government-Driven Fleet Strategy

Biman operates as a state-owned carrier, and the pace at which it has been placing orders in 2026 reflects decisions made at the ministerial level as much as inside the airline's own commercial planning department. Minister Millat's willingness to speak publicly and specifically about the Airbus order — naming the aircraft types, the quantities, and the expected month of signature — is itself notable for an airline that has historically kept fleet negotiations close to the chest until a deal is finalized. That the government let an internal August 31 deadline slip without a signed agreement, then kept the order alive and in the public conversation for another month, suggests a deal with enough institutional momentum behind it that a short delay was not treated as a sign of trouble.

The dual-track approach — ordering far into the future from two manufacturers while leasing in the present — is not unique to Biman among state carriers with ambitious but capital-constrained growth plans. Airlines across South Asia have increasingly found themselves negotiating for aircraft a decade or more before they are needed simply because manufacturer backlogs leave no earlier option, a dynamic that has reshaped fleet planning across the industry this year. What sets Biman apart is the scale of the mismatch between its current size — a single-digit-plus-teens fleet of 19 aircraft — and the 35-aircraft pipeline now on its books between the 2026 Boeing orders and the prospective Airbus deal. Few airlines of Biman's current size are carrying a near-doubling of their fleet in backlog, let alone one split for the first time across rival manufacturers.

Financing and Infrastructure Questions Still Open

Large aircraft orders by state airlines in South Asia are frequently financed through a mix of export-credit arrangements, sale-and-leaseback structures, and direct government backing, and neither Air Data News nor Aviation A2Z reported which combination Biman intends to use for either its Boeing or its prospective Airbus commitments. Export financing terms, in particular, can take months to negotiate even after a manufacturer and aircraft type have been settled, which is one reason the gap between an order's public announcement and its formal contractual signing can stretch on as it has here.

Equally unresolved is how Biman will build out the maintenance, spares and training infrastructure an entirely new manufacturer relationship demands. Introducing the A350 and A321neo alongside an existing Boeing-only maintenance operation means standing up parallel systems — type-rating pilots and engineers on Airbus airframes, securing spare-parts pipelines through Airbus's network rather than Boeing's, and potentially renegotiating maintenance contracts with third-party MRO providers who service one manufacturer's aircraft but not the other. None of that infrastructure work was addressed in the minister's comments or in either outlet's reporting, but it represents a substantial undertaking that will unfold over the years between now and the aircraft's 2033 delivery start, assuming the order is signed as planned.

What Comes Next

As of the most recent reporting, the deal had not yet been formally signed; both the minister's comments and the outlets' coverage describe it as expected to be finalized in October, with no exact signing date confirmed. A formal signing would typically be accompanied by a joint statement from Biman and Airbus, financing details, and a firmer delivery schedule — none of which had been disclosed at the time of this reporting. Given that an earlier internal deadline of August 31 came and went without a signature, there is some uncertainty about whether October will hold as the final timeline, though the minister's public confirmation suggests the government regards the deal as effectively settled in substance, if not yet in paperwork.

If the order is signed as described, it would mark the first time in Biman Bangladesh's history that its forward fleet plan includes aircraft from both of the world's two major manufacturers — a hedge against delivery delays that, ten years from now, could reshape what has long been an all-Boeing operation.

Sources

• Air Data News, "Biman says Airbus deal for 10 aircraft will be signed in October" — https://airdatanews.com/biman-says-airbus-deal-for-10-aircraft-will-be-signed-in-october
• Aviation A2Z, "Biman Bangladesh Set to Make Airbus Debut With Landmark 10-Jet Deal" — https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2026/10/01/biman-bangladesh-set-to-make-airbus-debut-with-landmark-10-jet-deal