To go to Jeddah from Dhaka, Biman Bangladesh Airlines takes 7 hours 20 minutes and uses the Pakistan airspace. However, over the recent escalation of tensions with India, Islamabad has closed its airspace, which is adding an extra hour to the flight.
In addition, extra manpower and fuel are needed though there hasn’t been any impact on passengers. To go to London, Kuwait, Doha, the Pakistan airspace is used but on 26 February, the Pakistan airspace was closed for commercial planes. As a result, many aircrafts had to cancel flight and passengers were stranded.
Biman is having to reschedule flights. The flight time to Dammam has risen from 5 hour 50 minutes to 6 hours 30 minutes while to go to London it now takes 12 hours instead of 10 hour 45 minutes. In fact, all flights have seen an hour added to the previous flight time.
For London and Jeddah, an additional crew member is placed on board, taking the number of crew members to four for London flights and three for Jeddah.
MD of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, and CEO, A M Mosaddek Ahmed, says: “since the airspace is risky, we are using alternative routes which is resulting in added time and fuel cost.”