Domestic flights to resume from June 1 in limited scale

Domestic flights will resume on Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet and Syedpur routes in a limited scale from June 1, the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) announced Thursday.

“But the embargo on international flights will be in place until June 15,” CAAB Chairman Air Vice Marshall Muhammad Mafidur Rahman told UNB.

Primarily, four domestic flights will operate on a small scale and later gradually flights on internal routes will resume, he said.

“But the flights should be operated following the health guideline,” the CAAB chairman said.

Besides, Biman Bangladesh Airlines also decided to resume their flights from June 1, while the international flights will remain suspended until further notice, said a press release.

Cargo, relief, air-ambulance, emergency landing and specials flights will continue operation.

The announcement came a day after the government said it was not extending the general holidays, aimed at limiting transmission of coronavirus, beyond May 30.

It also issued a gazette notification on Thursday, allowing limited operations of offices.

Flight operations were suspended amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, health authorities confirmed the detection of record 2,029 new patients in the last 24 hours, raising the total cases to 40,321.

Fifteen more people died from coronavirus during this period, taking the death tally to 559 on Thursday.