The government has arranged eight chartered flights to bring back more than 1000 Bangladeshi nationals who are stranded in India due to flight suspension amid outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.The US-Bangla airlines, one of the country’s private carriers, will operate six special chartered flights from Chennai to Dhaka and two from Kolkata to Dhaka scheduled for April 20 to 25, an official said.
“We will operate all the flights by our 168-seat Boeing 737-800 ER from both Chennai and Kolkata only for carrying Bangladeshi nationals,” General Manager of the airline Kamrul Islam told journalists.
He said the stranded passengers will bear the cost of their own tickets for the flights while so far, they are expecting to bring back more than 1000 Bangladeshi nationals from India by these eight flights.
The special flights are scheduled to take off from Chennai at 12:15 pm (local time) and arrive at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) at 3:15 pm every day since April 20 to 25 while the flights to take off from Kolkata at 11:30 am (local time) and arrive here at 1 pm on April 21 and 23.
On April 3, the foreign ministry issued a statement, saying that nearly 2500 Bangladeshi citizens including 1000 students are currently stranded in India due to COVID-19 outbreak.
The government is firmly committed to bring them back quickly, who got stuck in India and other countries, once the situation becomes convenient, said the statement, reports UNB.
