Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national flag carrier, ferries 18-20 thousand tons of perishable items every year while the country has the potential for increasing the export by at least three times, they added.

"Now the country earns nearly Tk 500 crore a year by exporting vegetables, betel leaf and fruits to 15 countries in Europe and the Middle East. But we can export 60 to 80 thousand tons of vegetables," said Md Farid Uddin Ahmed, president of Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetables and Allied Products Exporters Association (BFVAPEA).

When the country needs upgraded air shipment services to export items like vegetables to foreign markets, Biman service has deteriorated drastically, forcing vegetable traders not to export enough goods as per their capacity, he mentioned.

According to Export Promotion Bureau statistics, target of vegetables export for the year 2005-06 was fixed at $ 52 million but in the last nine months $ 25 million was earned, which is 32.97 percent less than the target.

As passenger aircraft of Biman often fail to ferry adequate vegetables due to acute space shortage, vegetables exporters have long been pressing the government to procure a cargo aircraft so that they can export more.

Exporters also said as there is no certainty of Biman's flight schedule, they often incur huge loss when the national flag carrier changes or cancels its schedule.

Normally we export 30 tons of vegetables every month, but in the last few months this figure came down to 20 tons due to Biman's frequent schedule cancellations, Sakir Ahmed of Brac's agricultural marketing wing said.

He said had there been no space shortage in aircraft, Brac could have exported 1.5 thousand to two thousand tons of vegetables every year.

"We have demanded a cargo aircraft for the route from Dhaka to London via Dubai or Jeddah so that we can reach our products to the markets of Europe and Middle East. But Biman authorities did not pay heed to our demand," the BFVAPEA president said.

Biman flights are the only way of transporting vegetables as ferrying perishable items through private airlines is more expensive and economically nonviable. Besides, private airline operators are not interested in carrying such items.

The exporters also urged Biman to transform one of its obsolete passenger carriers into cargo flight.

The association president said major vegetable exporting countries offer cargo flight services for carrying perishable goods. Alone Thailand operates 12 cargo flights from Bangkok to London every day, he told the newspaper.

However, Biman authorities said they have no plan to include cargo flights in its existing fleet at this moment.

"It will not be economically viable to run cargo flights from Bangladesh as the flights will have to return to Dhaka without any goods," said SM Mosaddeque Hussain, general manager (Cargo) of Biman.

"Vegetable export is a seasonal business here. So a full time cargo flight for this purpose will not be economically viable," he added.

He suggested the exporters to hire a cargo flight from international operators for peak vegetable exporting season, adding that in that case Biman will extend all types of facilities to the exporters.