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Biman halts Delhi, HK flights to carry hajis

First Hajj flight with 419 pilgrims takes off today

Staff Correspondent
Biman Bangladesh Airlines has suspended flight operations on Dhaka-Delhi and Dhaka-Hong Kong routes as it has engaged three of its wide-body aircraft for this year's Hajj operations start today.
As per an earlier decision of the Biman board, the flight operations on the two international routes will remain suspended until the Hajj operations end on November 8, said Biman officials.
The national carrier resumed twice weekly service each on the routes in May last year, a year after it suspended operations to these two long-served destinations in 2012 due to a severe shortage of aircraft.
The last flight with a 162-seated Boeing 737 aircraft flew to Hong Kong on Friday with 156 passen-
gers and returned home with 119 passengers. A similar aircraft flew to Delhi on Saturday with 32 passengers and returned with 104 passengers.
"Although response from passengers was poor immediately after the resumption of flights on the two routes, it improved considerably later,” said an official at Biman's marketing department.
The first Hajj flight is scheduled to leave Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 7:05am today with 419 pilgrims for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday opened the Hajj programme at Askkona Hajj camp in the capital.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines will carry 49,378 Hajj pilgrims, out of 98,757, from August 27 to
November 8 by 270 flights, including 224 dedicated flights and 46 scheduled flights, said a Biman press release.
The pre-Hajj flight will continue from August 27 to September 28 and post-Hajj return flights from October 8 to Novembers.
The rest of the half Hajj pilgrims will be ferried by Saudia Airlines.
The Saudia Airlines will start flights on September 1 and continue through the month. It will operate post-Hajj flights from October 9 to November 17.
Biman has fixed its fare at $1,500 for each pilgrim for Dhaka-Jeddah-Dhaka in economy class and $2,500 in business class excluding all taxes.
Biman will allow the pilgrims to carry 30kg of goods and another 7kg in cabin baggage and 10 litres of Zamzam water to carry to Dhaka free of cost.
Biman has appointed a local agent who will collect baggage from pilgrims at Mecca and Madina and carry those to the airport to reduce hassles of the pilgrims and avoid undue delay at the airports.