At least 55,000 Bangladeshi expatriates have been waiting to board Saudi Arabia-bound flights with return their tickets in hand since the Covid-19 pandemic halted their return to the Kingdom.
Of the passengers, about 25,000 have return tickets of Biman Bangladesh Airlines and about 30,000 have return tickets of Saudi Arabian Airlines, officials said yesterday.
Biman is the state-owned and national flag carrier of Bangladesh, while Saudi Arabian Airlines is the Kingdom's state-owned and national flag carrier.
There were several other foreign airliners which, before the pandemic, would carry significant number of passengers from Dhaka to different destinations in the Kingdom via stopovers in their respective countries, said sources at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
The airliners are Kuwait Airways, Etihad Airways, Emirates, Air Arabia and Gulf Air.
