British Airways has applied for permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) to resume direct flights on the Dhaka-London route after 11 years.
Md Mohibul Haque, the secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, gave the information on Sunday, reports bdnews24.com.
“We are considering this positively,” he said and added that they would discuss the issue on November 29.
A chartered British Airways plane carried 269 Britons, who had been stranded in Bangladesh due to travel restrictions over the coronavirus pandemic, from Dhaka on Apr 21.
It was the first British Airways passenger flight between Bangladesh and UK in 11 years.
British Airways had scrapped its flights on the Dhaka-London route in March, 2009 following losses after operating for decades.
One of the world’s “most popular” airlines, it had been running commercial passenger flights once a week between the two capitals and started ferrying passengers by Boeing 777 in October 2001, with three direct flights a week.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to a newly-born Bangladesh on January 10, 1972, by a special British Airways flight on being released by Pakistan.
After British Airways halted the flights, authorities of Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines expanded their business in Bangladesh. They carry passengers to Europe and the US via Dubai, Doha and Istanbul from Bangladesh.
Currently, Biman Bangladesh Airlines operates direct flights on the Dhaka-London route.❐
