RASHIDUL HASAN

Turkish Airlines used to fly to Dhaka twice a day but it has been operating one flight a day for a year since it cannot repatriate to Istanbul $24 million it earned here from ticket sales and by moving freight.

Officials of the carrier said they have reduced selling tickets in Dhaka and are urging flyers to buy tickets online and outside Bangladesh.

Following suit, other foreign carriers, including Singapore Airlines, Malindo Air, Kuwait Airways, and Cathay Pacific, have cut flight frequencies to Dhaka as they too cannot take their money back to their countries, said leaders of Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (ATAB).

With fewer seats available, ticket prices have gone up.

Fund repatriation by foreign airlines operating in Bangladesh has been suspended since March 2022.

On Sunday, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association of some 300 airlines or 83 percent of total air traffic, said Bangladesh is the second worst in the world in terms of blocking funds of carriers after Nigeria.

Bangladesh is withholding $214 million of airlines’ funds, it said, warning that this could result in carriers not serving Bangladesh.

“Airlines cannot continue to offer services in markets where they are unable to repatriate the revenues arising from their commercial activities in those markets,” said Willie Walsh, IATA director general.

The IATA said the global aviation industry’s blocked funds have increased by 47 percent to $2.27 billion in April 2023 from $1.55 billion in April 2022. The top five countries account for 68.0 percent of the blocked funds: Nigeria ($812.2 million), Bangladesh ($214.1 million), Algeria ($196.3 million), Pakistan ($188.2 million), and Lebanon ($141.2 million).

The IATA urged governments to abide by international agreements and treaty obligations to enable airlines to repatriate the funds.