Rashidul Hasan

Japan has barred Biman from operating special chartered flights to repatriate stranded citizens to and from Japan after four Bangladeshi passengers on a recent repatriation flight tested positive for Covid-19 despite having documents certifying that they had tested negative and were safe to travel.

The government has planned to resume regular passenger flight operations on international routes on a limited scale from third week of June after over two-and-a-half-months of suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As many as 43 staffers and officials of parliament secretariat have been infected with Covid-19 so far while the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban goes into budget session on Wednesday.

In the wake of rising Covid-19 deaths and infections across the country, the government today starts enforcing containment zones on a pilot basis in some areas of four districts, including Dhaka.

The government has so far suspended 87 public representatives for alleged corruption in relief distribution among the poor during Covid-19 pandemic.

A total of 946 Bangladeshi citizens, most of whom are migrant workers, returned to the country by four special flights from Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Russia in the 24 hours since Thursday morning.

Biman has now begun offering chartered flights on domestic routes due to frequent cancellations of all scheduled passenger flights over the last four days.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines cancelled all its 24 flights scheduled to operate yesterday and today on three domestic routes due to lack of passengers.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines cancelled all its domestic flights due to lack of passengers yesterday, a day after the government reopened public transport amid escalation of Covid-19 cases.

Local airlines yesterday saw an underwhelming response on the first day of the resumption of regular passenger flights on three domestic routes, following more than two months of flight suspension, sources at different airlines said.

The daily order of business of this year’s budget session will be carried out with minimum lawmakers in the House, in an attempt to maintain social distancing and avoid the risk of novel coronavirus infection.

All 1,203 Bangladeshis who returned to the country in 24 hours till yesterday -- most of whom migrant workers who had remained in detention camps or prisons of Middle Eastern countries -- were allowed to stay in home quarantine, causing concerns over spread of Covid-19.

The government is going to significantly raise bus fares, making travelling costlier for people already struggling with unemployment and reduced income amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The national airline Biman and two local airlines -- US-Bangla Airlines and Novoair -- are preparing to resume domestic flight operation from June 1 following the health guideline prescribed by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh.

The civil aviation ministry yesterday decided to resume domestic flight operations on a limited scale from June 1. The resumption comes after more than two months of ban on regular passenger flights on all international and domestic routes to contain the Covid-19 outbreak.

While the country sees the numbers of Covid-19 patients and deaths surge sharply, the government yesterday announced the end of the temporary shutdown.

Thousands of people continued to leave Dhaka yesterday as the government apparently relaxed travel restrictions ahead of the Eid.

Cyclone Amphan has left behind a trail of destruction in the country’s coastal areas, affecting more than a million people in nine districts in Khulna and Barishal divisions.

The global coronavirus pandemic will leave a long-lasting stain on the aviation sector, said a top official of Regent Airways, a domestic private carrier.

The country’s airline industry is grappling with strong headwinds and may drift further towards the verge of collapse without substantial financial support from the government, according to Mofizur Rahman, managing director of domestic carrier Novoair.