Air Sylhet

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected new airline. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as development continues, the launch date approaches, and as more information becomes available.

Air Sylhet

IATA '	ICAO '	Callsign '
Founded		2007
Fleet size
Destinations
Company slogan		Let's Fly
Headquarters		London, United Kingdom
Key people		Kabir Khan(Chairman) Kim O’Neil (Director) Shalim Uddin (Director)
Website: www.airsylhetonline.com

Air Sylhet is a UK-based airline planning to provide flights to Bangladesh from the United Kingdom using a low-cost model. Founded in early 2007 by expatriate British-Bangladeshis from the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, Air Sylhet is initially providing flights through an ACMI wet lease arrangement. This approach will enable Air Sylhet to launch services within a very short time. It is expected to be the first low cost airline to provide long haul services from Europe to Asia,^{[citation needed]} with services from London, Birmingham and Manchester to Dhaka.^[1]

[edit] History

The company is a registered UK public limited company with plans of floating on the AIM stock market in 2008, and is seeking initial investment primarily from the UK Bangladeshi community. Air Sylhet have not yet obtained a Type A Operating Licence or AOC from the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority.^[2]^[3]

Although, the airline has been founded on the basis of providing flights to Osmani International Airport in Sylhet from the UK the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh has yet to confirm that Air Sylhet (or any other foreign airline) will be given access to this lucrative route.

In October 2007, the founding chairman, Shah Shahin Choudhury, resigned from the company giving ill health and other business interests as his reasons. Air Sylhet announced that a new chairman, Kabir Khan, had been appointed to replace Choudhury and the Managing Director, Kim O'Neil, suggested that a reason for Choudhury's resignation was that he was setting up his own business although the nature of the business was not disclosed. Additionally, O'Neil clarified that Air Sylhet was fully FSA compliant.