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Three special flights carrying migrant workers stuck in the lockdown have left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport for their respective destinations.
“Twelve special flights from different airlines will depart throughout the day,” Airport Director Touheed Ul Ahsan said. It was the second scheduled day for the flights, reports bdnews24.com.
“Three flights, one each from Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Oman Air and Emirates, have departed this morning.”
Biman Bangladesh Airlines spokesperson Tahera Khandaker said four flights of the state-owned airline would head out from Dhaka on Sunday to Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Dubai.
“A special flight carrying nearly 200 passengers arrived in Riyadh around 3:00 am today,” she said. “Also, three flights, one from Jeddah and two from Riyadh, will arrive in Dhaka on Sunday.”
She expressed the hope that the special flight service would proceed smoothly.
“Special flights to Singapore are scheduled from Apr 20. If nothing changes, passengers will be able to set out then.”
Various reasons forced the cancellation of half of the 14 special flights scheduled for their first day of operations on Saturday. One Riyadh-bound flight was cancelled because it did not obtain permission to land.
Lack of passengers forced the cancellation of two flights to Dubai and one flight to Dammam.
Later on, Biman took passengers to their destinations aboard a Riyadh-bound flight and a Jeddah-bound flight in the evening and another Riyadh-bound flight in the early hours of Sunday.
US-Bangla Airlines spokesman Md Kamrul Islam said that the airline was operating flights to Doha and Dubai on Sunday afternoon and a flight to Muscat on Sunday night.
He said that a flight headed to Muscat on Saturday had been cancelled for several reasons, including lack of passengers.
“The passengers from that flight will arrive at their destinations on Sunday night,” he said.
Biman Bangladesh released a statement on Thursday stating that it would operate special flights to eight destinations in five countries from Saturday morning for migrant workers who were stranded in Bangladesh due to the lockdown.
The destinations of these flights are Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Oman’s capital Muscat, Qatar’s capital Doha and Singapore.