Biman to resume flights to India from August 22
Biman Bangladesh has announced to resume flights to India from August 22, sources in the national airliner has said.
The national flag carrier has initially planned to operate weekly two flights, on Sunday and Wednesday, on the Dhaka-Delhi-Dhaka route and two flights, on Sunday and Tuesday, on Dhaka-Kolkata-Dhaka route, Harun Khan, manager, sales, Biman office at Dhaka's Motijheel, told The Daily Star.
Passengers will have to go through a series of formalities to buy a ticket to travel to India, Harun said.
For example, he said, a passenger will have to fill-up a self-reporting form using a specific website, then another registration using Delhi Airport website, get a Covid-19 test done 72 hours before the flight and upload the test report on a specific website.
Biman has sent letter and message to its travel agents in this regard.
Mazharul Haque Bhuiyan, secretary general, Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh, said they received Biman's message about resuming flights to India from August 22.
Asked, a top official of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh today told The Daily Star that they are yet to get any formal letter from India about resuming flights.
Wishing anonymity, he, however, said they are hoping to get the letter from India very soon.
CAAB on August 4 sent a proposal to India citing different conditions to resume flights between the two countries.
Flights between the two neighboring countries will 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 the start of the second wave of coronavirus in the country.
After being closed for 16 days, operation of international flights resumed from May 1 except for 12 countries including India.
CAAB later added and deducted names of different countries from the list.