Flight Debacle
400 Biman passengers stranded
Around 400 passengers of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, mostly bound for Middle-Eastern destinations, were stranded at Dhaka and Chittagong until yesterday as the national carrier’s schedule disorder persists.
The backlog of affected Biman flyers might increase to 2,000 passengers till September 25 according to the numbers of scheduled travellers, flights and seating capacity of carriers, insiders say.
The serious schedule chaos that hit Biman in the second week of September has already hampered travel plans of several thousand passengers.
The chaos ensued as a leased aircraft had left Biman fleet without completing eight scheduled flights and the authorities had deployed two Boeing 777 and a DC-10 to ferry hajj pilgrims.
The hajj flights that started on September 17 are however going on smoothly.
Many passengers who were scheduled to leave for Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Riyadh yesterday afternoon and evening could not fly last night. They were forced to stay at either hotels or airports in Dhaka and Chittagong.
“My brother Mohammad Dholu is lucky to have flown to Dubai today. Many others who have been waiting for three days could not board their planes,” said Mohammad Ali who came from Barisal to see off Dholu.
He said his brother would have to return home had he failed to travel yesterday as his reporting date is today.
Contacted, M Shahnewaj, director, Marketing and Sales, of Biman said the situation will improve from September 25 when two aircraft — a 313 seater DC-10 and a leased 272 seater Boeing 767 — will join the fleet.
Biman has already shut its domestic operations and deployed two small aircraft to ferry the stranded passengers. Besides, it has also ferried around 600 stranded passengers, mostly those facing visa expiry, by 11 other airlines.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
