BANGLADESH NEWS
As many as 271 Saudi Arabia-bound passengers were stranded at Shah Amanat International Airport for about 20 hours as a Bangladesh Biman flight was delayed due to technical glitches.
The passengers including some 100 women and children had to spend the night at the lounge in a miserable condition until they were accommodated in different hotels at around 3:00pm yesterday.
Most of the passengers of the flight BG-037were on their way to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah hajj.
Mojibur Rahman, one of the passengers, and his family were totally exhausted as they spent the night sitting in the lounge.
"I was stranded in the airport lounge since 9:00 last night with my wife and child. We could not sleep the entire night," Mojibur complained.
Some of the passengers even slept on the floor, he said.
He added, "The flight was scheduled to depart at 1:30am and we reported at 9:00pm."
Instead of taking care of the passengers, the authorities kept changing the flight schedule for the entire night and also in the day in vain, he alleged.
"They gave us new schedules at 2:30am, 5:00am, 11:30am, 2:30pm and finally 11:45pm [Wednesday], but we are not sure whether we can fly this time," Mojibur said.
Contacted, Dilip Kumar Chowdhury, district manager of Bangladesh Biman, Chittagong, said the flight was delayed due to technical hitches and the passengers have been accommodated in four city hotels."
He said the Biman aircraft, which was scheduled to start from Dhaka for Jeddah via Chittagong, could not fly from the capital.
Among the 314 passengers of the flight, 43 were scheduled to fly from Dhaka. Of the 271 passengers from Chittagong, 219 were sent to hotels and the rest went back to their houses.
Speaking anonymously, an official of Biman headquarters in Dhaka said, "We are not yet sure whether the plane can depart from Dhaka at 11:00pm."
The official added, "We face frequent technical problems as all the planes of Bangladesh Biman are old."
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