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Hajj flights OK, regular ones not

SHARIFUL ISLAM
Biman Bangladesh Airlines will face a backlog of around 4,000 passengers by September 25 as its regular flight schedule has collapsed due to acute shortage of aircraft.
This will have the national carrier incur a loss of around Tk 20 crore.
About 3,000 travellers, said Biman officials, had already been stranded at Dhaka and Chittagong airports and at different hotels in the cities until yesterday.
Cancellation of a good number of flights since September 10 has shattered the travel plans of the passengers.
However, there will be no disruption in hajj flights as the authorities have already allotted several aircraft to fly the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, Biman started its hajj flights for this year.
Officials at the Biman's flight control division said no flight was cancelled yesterday, although eight were delayed by two to six hours.
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The carrier will have to cancel four regular flights scheduled fortoday.
Citing a preliminary estimation, a top official of Biman's marketing division said the airline had earned aroundTk 10 crore in revenue by selling tickets, which it would have to re fund now.
"Moreover, aroundTk 8 to Tk 10 crore will be spent additionally for food and hotel fares of the stranded passengers," the official told The Daily Star, seeking anonymity.
Visiting Shahjalal International Airport yesterday, this correspondent found several minibuses ferrying passengers from the airport to different hotels.
Around 300 passengers were stranded at the airport for hours. Visas of many of them will expire in a day or two
"Schools of the children of my employer have already opened after a vacation. As a driver, I used to drop and pick them up from schools," said SirajulIslam.
His flight for Riyadh was scheduled for Sunday and he nowfearslosinghisjob.
Expressing frustration, another driver Emdadul Haque Bhuiyan said he had been waiting for three days for his flight to Riyadh. "We earn foreign currency for the country, but nobody seems to careaboutourplight"
Despite being aware of Biman's poor service, Emdadul opted to fly by it to help the carrier recover its losses.
And now after this pitiful experience, he has decided notto flyonBiman anymore.
The crisis hit the national carrier as a leased Boeing 747 left the airliner on September 12, eight days ahead of the scheduled end of the lease. The aircraft has a passenger capacityof505.
The situation turned worse as a Boeing 777-300ER was grounded for 15 hours on Sunday after a bird hit its engine while the aircraft was landing at Shahjalal International Airport, said Biman sources.
An airbus which was supposed to join Biman's flee t on September 15 after overhauling in Singapore did notarrive.
The airline could not even put a DC 1030 aircraft in