Flights to Kolkata from Bangladesh dwindling due to ongoing crisis, traders hit

Kolkata: The number of flights to Kolkata from Bangladesh has dwindled over the last few months with a falling passenger count, amid the ongoing crisis in the neighbouring country, officials at the NSCBI airport here said on Sunday.

One airline from India has also scrapped its plan to begin flight services between Kolkata and Dhaka for the time being, they said.

Flights arriving in Kolkata, operated by US-Bangla Airlines, a private carrier of the neighbouring country, were 84 in July and the number came down to 24 in November, the officials said.

According to officials at the Kolkata airport, the airline carried 7,391 passengers to Kolkata in July, which came down to 1,646 in November.

The number of departures from Kolkata to Bangladesh simultaneously shows the same trend.

Similarly, the national carrier of the neighbouring country Biman Bangladesh had operated 59 flights to Kolkata in July and the number fell to 28 in November, the officials said.

Indian low-cost carrier Indigo’s flight arrival figure from Bangladesh has also come down from 62 to 44, sources at the airport said.

Biman Bangladesh from August 10 reduced operations from two flights per day to one, while US-Bangla Airlines slipped to one per day from three daily flights from August 17, the sources at the airport said.

According to industry experts, the decline in flight operations happened due to the continuous crisis in Bangladesh since August this year.

Passengers are coming in fewer numbers due to the crisis, while people from this side are not going to the neighbouring country due to the fear of losing their lives, the experts said.

Air India Express was supposed to start flights to Dhaka from Kolkata and Chennai from the winter schedule but the airline has put the plan on hold due to the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh from the middle of this year, sources at the airport said.

“There has been a great impact on tourism. Shop owners in New Market area in Kolkata, hotels in and around the central part of the city, including Sudder Street, money changers, travel agents and other businessmen have been hit the most,” Anil Punjabi, committee member of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) representing East, told PTI over phone.

“The hotels in the New Market area here used to experience 100 per cent occupancy but it has come down to 20 per cent," he said.

“The impact due to the ongoing Bangladesh crisis is much more than what had happened during the COVID-19 period. If this continues, many people will be affected and they will lose their sources of income," Punjabi said.

Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) eastern region chairman Anjani Dhanuka said the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh, where now people from a particular community are being targeted, has affected trade in India, especially in Kolkata.

“While Indian carrier Indigo is still operating flights between the two countries with moderate load, the airlines based in Bangladesh have already curtailed flights as passenger footfall has gone down over the last few months,” he said.

"While fresh VISA is not being given by India to Bangladesh citizens due to the unrest there, people from here are not going to the neighbouring country out of fear…thus resulting in low number of passengers," he explained.

Medical tourism has almost stopped and exports of agri-products, onion and motor parts to the neighbouring country have gone down by 90 per cent, Dhanuka said.

Nothing will be fine unless the situation in Bangladesh becomes normal, he said.

Naresh Parnani, a businessman who owns a silver jewellery shop in New Market area, said that his business is down by 20 per cent.

The businesses of some of his friends have gone down by 50 per cent, he claimed.

They deal in garments and several things such as watches and clocks.

Room rents of hotels in Sudder Street have also come down, Parnani said, “A room which used to cost Rs 3,000 per day has come down to Rs 600,” he added.