Airlines ignoring restrictions warned of flight ban

The Civil Aviation Authorities, Bangladesh announced that it would slap a ban on flight operations of an airlines to and from Bangladesh if it carried COVID-19 positive passengers or passengers without PCR-based COVID-19 negative certificate.

The order came after a number of Bangladeshi  and foreign carriers carried COVID-19 positive passengers and passengers without PCR-based coronavirus negative certificate from various destinations in the past few days, ignoring a restriction imposed by the Bangladesh authorities. 

The CAAB order, issued on Sunday, stated that for the first violation, one scheduled flight would be suspended while for the second violation, three scheduled flights would be suspended and for the third violation, all scheduled flights would be suspended for a week.

And for the fourth violation all the scheduled flights would be suspended for a minimum of four weeks, said the order.

CAAB member (flight standard and regulations) Group Captain Chowdhhury Zia Ul Kabir signed the order instructing all the airlines operating to and from Bangladesh to strictly adhere to it.

Health department officials working at the airport said that they have found various airlines ferried at least 1,040 passengers to Dhaka between December 5 and December 13 without PCR-based COVID19 negative certificate.

The airport medical officer, Nasreen Akhter, said a number of airlines have carried passengers without PCR-based test but other tests, including antigen test.

She said that Saudia, Biman Bangladesh Airlines and Malaysian Air Asia carried three passengers with COVID-19 positive certificate on December 7, 9 and 13 respectively.

The airport executive magistrate, Ahmed Jamil, said they were engaged in monitoring the compliance of the health restrictions from December 10.

On the day, the airport executive magistrate fined Maldivian Airlines Tk 2, 38,000 for carrying passengers to Bangladesh without COVID-19 negative certificates.

On Saturday, Biman was fined Tk 30,000 for flying passengers to Bangladesh without COVID-19 negative certificates.

The executive magistrate court at the airport fined Air Asia, a Malaysia-based budget airlines, Tk 1 lakh for carrying an identified COVID-19 positive passenger, leading the authorities to go tougher against the airline operators.

The CAAB order said it observed with great concern that recently some airlines were carrying passengers without PCR-based COVID-19 negative certificates and sometimes even with COVID-19 positive passenger.

‘Such act is not only a violation of the circular and the letter under reference, it also creating hazardous situation to all other passengers being on board of the same aircraft and also have a negative impact on the initiatives taken by the government to combat the present pandemic situation,’ said CAAB.

In a notification on November 30, the government made PCR-based COVID-19 negative certificates mandatory for all passengers coming to Bangladesh from December 5.

The notification said that all passengers coming to Bangladesh must carry ‘PCR-based COVID-19 certificate’ obtained within 72 hours of the flight time.

The aviation authorities exempted only children aged below 10 years from the mandatory certificate.

As of December 14, Bangladesh tallied 4.92 lakh COVID-19 cases with 7,089 deaths.

News Courtesy: https://www.newagebd.net/article/124316/airlines-ignoring-restrictions-warned-of-flight-ban