Flying thru local airports gets costlier
Air travellers using the services of the airports in Bangladesh will have to pay additional charges as authorities imposed airport development and passenger safety fees effective from yesterday.
All airlines operating to and from Bangladesh started collecting fees with tickets. Outbound passengers flying to Saarc countries have to pay 6 USD for passenger safety and 5 USD for airport development while those flying to other countries have to pay 10 USD for airport development and the same amount for passenger safety fees.
Domestic passengers, however, are being charged Tk 70 for passenger safety and Tk 100 for airport development. M Mohibul Haque, senior secretary of civil aviation and tourism ministry, said, "Such fees seem new to us, but the fact is all countries across the globe have already imposed such fees."
He also said the amount charged is far less than that other countries have been charging. The senior secretary said the money will be spent for airport development and passenger security.
Development work is going on in all the airports in Bangladesh while different works are on to ensure security at the airports, he added.
If anyone buys a return ticket they will have to pay the fees with the tickets and the money will be collected through IATA (International Air Transport Association), not in cash. Officials in the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (Caab) said on top of the fees, passengers will also have to pay 15 percent value-added tax (VAT), making air travel costlier than before in a time of crisis, Caab officials said.
The government is expecting about Tk 600 crore annually from the fees, they added. The Caab requires around Tk 4,000 crore annually to operate the airports in Bangladesh.
BIMAN TO REISSUE RETURN TICKETS
Meanwhile, Biman Bangladesh Airlines will reissue tickets to all passengers who bought return tickets on the Dhaka-Dubai and Dhaka-Abu Dhabi routes but could not travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic, BSS reported yesterday.
No extra charge will be imposed, said a press release of the civil aviation and tourism ministry, adding that once the reissuance of the return tickets is completed, the sale of new tickets will begin.
Besides, when the Abu Dhabi authorities will approve the September 2020 schedule for the Abu Dhabi route, the sale of Biman tickets for September will resume.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines is currently operating six flights per week on the Dhaka-Abu Dhabi-Dhaka route, six flights on Dhaka-Dubai-Dhaka route, one fight on Dhaka-London-Dhaka route, two fights on Dhaka-Kuala Lumpur-Dhaka route, two fights on Dhaka-Guangzhou-Dhaka route and two fights on Dhaka-Hong Kong-Dhaka route.