Migrants with Bureau of Manpower clearance to get priority on return flights

Expatriate workers who have clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) will get priority on the special flights to return to their workplaces in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Singapore.

In an inter-ministerial meeting last night, the government decided to operate around 100 special flights in those countries in one week from April 17 so that several thousand migrant workers who are stuck in the country due to weeklong ban on international flights, can return to their workplaces.

The government on April 11 suspended operation of all international passenger flights to and from Bangladesh for a week from April 14 to contain the spread of Covid-19.

In the inter-ministerial meeting, it was decided that migrant workers who have visit visa but do not have the BMET clearance, will not get priority in returning to their respective workplaces.

Besides, migrant workers will be given priority to go abroad based on duration of their visa and Iqama (valid work permit), the inter-ministerial meeting said in its decision.

The meeting also decided that ground handling charges at the airport for the special flights will remain the same as for normal flights to keep the price of special flight's tickets affordable for expatriate workers.

If any Bangladeshi is stuck in those five countries and if they want to return to the country, they can return by fulfilling certain conditions. Covid-19 negative certificate is required and they will have to stay in 14-day mandatory quarantine.

According to the decision, the special flight will be operated only from Dhaka. Those who had bought tickets from Chittagong will be brought to Dhaka on a connecting flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines.

CAAB on April 1 said passengers from the European countries except for UK and 12 other countries will not be allowed to enter in Bangladesh.

The 12 countries are: Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Peru, Qatar, South Africa, Turkey and Uruguay.

This ban came into effect from April 3 and will continue till April 18.