Shortage of passengers forces Biman to cancel flights today, tomorrow

A shortage of passengers has forced Biman Bangladesh Airlines to cancel its scheduled flights for today and tomorrow on three domestic routes.

"After resumption of flight operations, only two flights were operated in the last 10 days while all other scheduled flights were cancelled due to non-availability of passengers," said Tahera Khandaker, deputy general manager (PR) of Biman.

Tahera said airline authorities decided to operate two flights in the morning and two in the afternoon on each of the three domestic routes; as per the decision, a total of 12 flights were scheduled to be operated every day.

After more than two months of suspension amid the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic flights operation resumed on Dhaka-Chattogram, Dhaka-Sylhet and Dhaka-Syedpur routes on a limited scale maintaining all health rules from June 1.

Bangladesh confirmed its first cases of the infection on March 8 and the first death on March 18 but it has been seeing a sharp rise in both new cases and deaths in recent weeks.

The health authorities reported 71,675 coronavirus cases and 975 deaths in the country as of Tuesday.

Among the total confirmed cases, 15,336 people have so far recovered.

Altogether 3,117 new coronavirus cases were recorded in the last 24 hours after testing 14,664 samples at 55 laboratories across the country as of Tuesday.