COVID-19 shutdown: Airlines in Bangladesh counting huge losses

Collected
The suspension of international and domestic flights, fall in air travel demand and monetary uncertainty following outbreak of coronavirus across the world continue to cause enormous losses to airlines in Bangladesh.
 
Although the procedure of special cargo flights continues on the regular routes, all of the passenger flights on domestic and international routes except a few with China and the uk (UK), continue to be suspended, said Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority.

Bangladesh Biman’s scheduled passenger flights to the united kingdom are also suspended.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines has so far counted over Tk 235 crore loss because the outbreak of the global pandemic and the quantity of loss continues to go up every day, said Mohibul Haque, Senior Secretary of Civil Aviation & Tourism Ministry.

Standard Secretary of Aviation Operators Association of Bangladesh (AOAB) and Managing Director of Novoair Mofizur Rahman said the personal condition of the airlines is currently very bad because of the COVID-19.

“We won’t manage to operate flights without government help if the situation doesn’t improve. The aviation sector is now under severe threat…how the airlines will survive when the activity of people found a halt,” he explained.

Mofizur Rahman continued to state, “We’re facing issues in maintaining the administration cost, civil aviation charge, repayment of the installments of aircraft.”

During this lockdown, different firms have to provide car parking bill of aircraft and hire for office buildings inside airports, he stated.

“We’re urging the government to lessen the charges in this crisis minute,” he added.

On March 21, Bangladesh cancelled all the international passenger flights with 10 countries until March 31 that was later extended to restrict the pass on of the virus.

International industrial passenger flights with 10 counties -- Malaysia, Oman Singapore, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, India, and Bahrain -- were suspended.

On March 15, Bangladesh suspended on arrival visas for all countries for two weeks that is still effective. Besides, travellers are not permitted to enter Bangladesh from all Europe except England.

On March 19, Biman Bangladesh Airlines cancelled all its flights to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Besides, the Bangladesh Biman and US Bangla Airlines also refunded all of the passengers who have previously booked tickets for different locations.

Managing Director of Bangladesh Biman Mokabbir Hossain explained all flights happen to be suspended till April 15 and it could extend depending upon the situation.

All flights will resume procedures following directive from the ministry worried in this respect, he said.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant effect on aviation industry because of the resulting travel restrictions together with slump popular among travellers. Significant reductions in passenger amounts has led to planes flying empty between airports and the cancellation of flights.

On 5 March 2020, the International Air Transport Association estimated that the airline sector could lose between US$ 63 to 113 billion of revenues as a result of reduced number of travellers.

IATA had previously estimated earnings losses of round US$30 billion fourteen days before their 5 March estimate. By 17 March, IATA had stated that its 5 March estimate was "outdated", and that airlines would need $200 billion in bailouts to survive the crisis.

IATA even more revised their revenue damage estimate on March 24 and that's to be $252 billion globally, a 44 percent drop.

Bangladesh has up to now reported 21 deaths from coronavirus.  The country reported 330 confirmed instances as of Thursday.

The global death toll from coronavirus has reached 95,722 by Friday morning.

There were 1,603,719 confirmed cases all over the world after the highly contagious disease was first reported in China in December last, according to worldometer.
Source: http://www.theindependentbd.com

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