SIA will suspend operations between Chittagong and the city state from January 20, an airline official here said. It launched the service in March 2002.

"The head office in Singapore decided to suspend the twice-weekly operation on the Chittagong-Yangon-Singapore route ... and we don't know whether the operation will resume at all in the near future," representative Ashikul Islam Shameem told AFP.

He added: "Anything more, only the head office can say."

Business sources cited falling passenger loads and relocation of companies from Chittagong to the capital Dhaka as reasons for the decline in air services.

SIA's move follows a number of other recent service suspensions.

Phuket Air, a private airline from Thailand, halted its twice-weekly flights to Bangkok in June after just over a year, a spokesman for Nora Travels, the airline's Bangladeshi representative, said.

"We were forced to shut our operation as passenger load was very poor and it was difficult for us to survive ... its resumption is uncertain," said the spokesman.

Indian Airlines, which operated between Chittagong and Kolkata, suspended its service earlier this year.

A spokesman at Chittagong's Shah Amanat International Airport said he was yet to be told of the suspensions.

"We were not yet informed officially about the suspension of operations by foreign airlines from here," airport manager Khorshed Alam Sarkar said.