Amid huge rush of Eid holidaymakers by air, all the three airlines of the country have decided to increase domestic flights to accommodate passengers.
Officials of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national flag carrier of the country, US-Bangla Airlines, and Novoair said almost 80 to 90 percent of tickets one week before and after May 2, the possible date of Eid-ul-Fitr, are already sold out.
Prices of air tickets have shot up two to three times due to surge in demand, sources in the three airlines said.
The country is going for a holiday for around nine days between April 29 to May 7 with a lone working day on May 5.
Sources at different airlines said the extended holidays has prompted people to take aerial routes to holiday in tourist destinations with their near and dear ones.
Different airlines are happily counting the windfall profit saying that holidaymakers nowadays prefer travelling by air to avoid hassles of a time-consuming journey by road and railway.
Aviation experts said improvement in people’s financial condition as well as competitive and reasonable prices of air tickets has considerably boosted domestic and international air traffic.
Ticket prices on Dhaka-Jashore and Dhaka-Barishal routes have gone up by around two to three times due to high demands as people are trying to avoid the long tailbacks at Mawa and Paturia ferry terminals.
Kamrul Islam, general manager, marketing, US-Bangla Airlines, said they will operate additional one flight everyday to Rajshahi and additional two flights to Saidpur route on April 29.
US Bangla operates around 35 flights every day to seven domestic destinations from Dhaka.
Novoair, which operates 26 to 28 flights on seven domestic destinations from Dhaka, said they will operate additional two flights each to Jashore and Saidpur and additional one flight each to Rajshahi and Barishal route from April 28 to May 1.
-With The Daily star input
