Biman decides to resume domestic flights

Biman Bangladesh Airlines on Wednesday decided to resume its domestic flight operation on three destinations – Chattogram, Sylhet and Syedpur – from and to the capital from 25 July, an airline official said.

The national flag carrier is going to resume its domestic operation after practically four months as it operated only one flight to Syedpur when the government reopened internal air connectivity on 1 June after more than two months of suspension for containing outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

After operating the lone flight on the first day of flight resumption, Biman kept suspending its operation on domestic routes due to lack of passengers, however, two private carriers – US-Bangla airline and Novoair – have been operating domestic flights since 1 June.

The government had first resumed the air connectivity on the three routes – Chattogram, Sylhet, Saidpur – out of its seven domestic destinations while it reopened flight operation to Jashore, Barisal and Rajshahi on 11 June, 12 and 21 July respectively.

Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB) is yet to give permission to operate flights to the last domestic route on Cox’s Bazar as airport in that destination was not prepared to follow CAAB’s prescribed health guideline.

According to CAAB guideline, airlines are operating flight keeping at least 30 per cent seats vacant on each flight to ensure social distancing by keeping at least gap of a seat between two passengers if they are not from the same family.