Biman's special flight cancelled, several hundred Saudi-bound employees protest at Dhaka airport

Several hundred Saudi Arabia bound migrant workers demonstrated at Dhaka Airport early today due to cancellation of a Biman Bangladesh Airlines special flight.

BG 5039 was scheduled to depart from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 6:15am for Riyadh. But Biman was forced to cancel the special flight as Saudi authorities didn't give landing permission, sources at the HSIA said.

Around 300 passengers, who reached the airport over six hours ahead of the departure time of the flight, shouted and demonstrated when the airport and Biman authorities informed them at around 2:00am that the flight was cancelled.

The official at the HSIA said the special flight of the national airliner was cancelled as the Saudi authorities didn't give landing permission.

Wishing anonymity, he also said all of the passengers will be studied to a hotel in the town and they will fly to Saudi Arabia on another available flight.

A complete of 314 expatriate employees from different parts of the country were scheduled to board the flight, Biman sources said.

Talking to the media, several expatriate employees said because of countrywide strict lockdown that they had an extremely difficult time to reach the airport on time.


But at the last moment, these were informed about the flight cancellation, they added.

They said they could have avoided these untold sufferings had Biman informed them about the flight cancellation earlier.

Sources at Biman hinted that other flights to Saudi Arabia scheduled for today may also get cancelled.

The government on April 15 decided to operate around 100 special flights to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Singapore in a single week from today in order that several thousand migrant employees who remained stuck in the united states due to weeklong ban on international flights, can go back to their workplaces.

The federal government on April 11 suspended procedure of most international passenger flights to and from Bangladesh for a week from April 14 to contain spread of Covid-19.

According to Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and Association of TRAVEL COMPANIES of Bangladesh (Atab) about 20,000 to 25,000 aspiring migrant personnel were supposed to catch their due flights in weekly starting from Wednesday.