Biman flights to India restart on Sunday

Biman Bangladesh has announced resumption of flights to India from Sunday.

The national flag carrier has initially planned to operate flights to Delhi on Sundays and Wednesdays and to Kolkata on Sundays and Tuesdays, Harun Khan, manager, sales, Biman Bangladesh's office at city's Motijheel, told The Daily Star.

Passengers will have to go through a series of formalities to buy tickets, Harun said.

For example, he said, a passenger will have to fill up a self-reporting form using a specific website, then register with Delhi Airport website, test for Covid-19 within 72 hours before departure and upload the report to a specific website.

To this end, Biman has sent letters and texts to its travel agents.

Mazharul Haque Bhuiyan, secretary general of Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh, said they have got Biman's texts about resuming flights to India from Sunday.

Asked, a top official of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) told this correspondent that they were yet to get any formal letter from India about resuming flights.

Wishing anonymity, the official, however, said they were hoping to get the letter from India very soon.

On August 4, CAAB sent a proposal to India citing different conditions for resuming flights between the two countries.

The flights would be operated under an "air bubble" agreement.

Millions of people, including patients, businessmen, and students, used to visit India every year while many Indians used to visit Bangladesh on various purposes.

Bangladesh suspended all international flights to and from Bangladesh on April 14 after this wave of Covid hit the country hard.

After 16 days, international flights resumed from May 1, excluding 12 countries including India.

CAAB later added and deducted names of countries from the list.

In its latest circular on July 5, CAAB made a fresh list of eight countries, including India, from where no passengers are allowed to enter Bangladesh.

When Covid-19 first broke out in the country last year, air communication with India remained suspended for several months.

Flights between Bangladesh and India resumed on October 28 under the air bubble agreement.

All Indian Visa Application Centres in Bangladesh already resumed operations from Wednesday as the Covid-19 lockdown has been eased.

A Facebook post from the Indian High Commission in Dhaka on Tuesday said all applications except for tourist visas will be accepted.

In its letter to the director general of civil aviation of India on August 4, CAAB proposed 21 air bubble flights a week for each of the countries.

The letter also said which categories of passengers could fly.

Regarding capacity restrictions on flights, CAAB said a maximum of 140 passengers can be carried by a single-aisle aircraft and 200 passengers by a twin-isle aircraft.

Apart from Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Novo Air, and US Bangla of Bangladesh and Air India, Indigo, SpiceJet, Vistara, and GoAir operate flights from Bangladesh.