The demand for air tickets on domestic routes has peaked ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr amid a suspension on inter-district public transports to curb the spread of Covid-19 infection.
As of Sunday, airline operators had already sold out most of their tickets, willing to operate more flights catering passengers’ demands if the government allows.
Operation of domestic flights resumed on April 21 after a 16-day shutdown. The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh reduced the number of daily flights for each airline company at that time. According to the CAAB, airlines had been announcing flights maintaining their guidelines.
The domestic route from Dhaka to Cox's Bazar remains closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, but airlines are operating flights from Dhaka to Chattogram, Sylhet, Jashore, Saidpur, Rajshahi and Barishal.
The Aviation Operators Association of Bangladesh, an organisation of private airline owners, says half of the capacity of domestic airlines currently remains unused.
Mofizur Rahman, managing director of Novoair and secretary general of AOAB, told The Business Post that there was always an additional demand for flights during Eid seasons and in normal time, they would have operated as many as 30 flights.
“However, we are now operating half of the flights of our capacity due to coronavirus,” he said.
This is putting pressure on the company and the staff, he added.
Tahera Khandaker, deputy general manager (public relations) of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, said that the demand for tickets on May 11, 12, 13 was higher. However, tickets for other dates were also selling heavily.
Due to high demand, Biman was adding extra flights on May 9, 10, and 11 before Eid and May 16 and 17 after Eid, she added.
The national flag carrier operates flights on all routes except Cox's Bazar and Rajshahi. In regular times, three flights on average were operated daily to Chattogram and Sylhet, two to Jashore and Saidpur and one to Barisal.
Biman’s one-way tickets cost Tk 3,200 to Tk 3,400 each, Tahera said. “However, if you buy a ticket the day before or on the day of the flight, the price will be Tk 7,200 to Tk 7,400. It's the same for all airlines.”
Meanwhile, general manager (public relations) of US-Bangla Airlines Kamrul Islam told The Business Post that the company had been operating flights maintaining health guidelines since the beginning of the pandemic, adding that they planned to continue the practice this Eid as well.
However, due to the Covid-19, the number of their flights had been reduced by half, he said.
“In normal times, 36 flights were operated daily, whereas now only 18 flights operate to Chattogram, Sylhet, Jashore, Saidpur, Rajshahi and Barishal.”
According to Kamrul, there is an increase in one-way traffic this Eid as most of the people travel to hometowns from Dhaka on flights but resort to other methods to return.
“We have to bear operational costs even when the flights return empty, which raises one-way ticket fares slightly. But passengers don't want to understand that,” he said.
The flights they had till May 12 were almost sold out and return tickets for May 15, 16 and 17 after Eid were also almost gone, he further added.
Regarding the extra flights, both Novoair managing director and US-Bangla general manager said that they were operating those flights maintaining government instructions.
They added that they were ready to operate additional flights if the authorities concerned allowed.
