DHAKA, June 5, 2020 (BSS) – A total of 394 more US citizens left here today as the US embassy arranged the final dedicated flight to the USA for its nationals and permanent residents who are stranded in Bangladesh amid flight suspension due to COVID-19 pandemic.
“A chartered flight of Qatar Airways left Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) for USA at 6:07 pm carrying 394 passengers,” spokesperson of Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh
(CAAB) told BSS.
The flight carrying the US citizens, mostly expatriate Bangladeshis residing in the USA permanently, will reach at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York via Doha, Qatar, while the passengers will remain on the aircraft in Doha.
Earlier, the US embassy here said they are not planning any additional flights from Dhaka to the USA after this flight.
On Wednesday, another 404 US citizens left here by the first ever US chartered flight from here with destination to New York as earlier all US repatriation flights went to Washington DC from HSIA since the global outbreak of novel coronavirus.
On March 30, the first batch of 269 stranded US citizens left Bangladesh by the first chartered flight of Qatar Airways while on April 5, 322, on April 13, 328 and on April 21, 301 US citizens departed Dhaka by chartered flights for the USA.
Other countries, including India, the UK, India, Japan, Canada,Australia, Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Bhutan, Myanmar and different European countries also operated several special chartered flights amid the flight suspension to repatriate their
citizens from here.
Bangladesh also repatriated stranded Bangladeshis from different other countries including the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia,Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.
On May 25, Bangladesh extended the ongoing ban on flight operation for the seventh consecutive time till June 15 over the coronavirus fear while it resumed flights on domestic routes on June 1.