Biman to resume flights to New York soon, says Momen

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has expressed his hope that Biman Bangladesh will be able to resume flights from Dhaka to New York soon.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took a chartered Biman flight to join the UN General Assembly and arrived in New York on Sunday. “We have now made this trip on a Biman flight. I hope that, in the future, we will resume flights on the Dhaka-New York route,” Momen said at the Lotte New York Palace on Monday.

“The Bangladesh and US aviation authorities had recently reached an agreement and things were at a positive stage, so I am quite hopeful that flights will start running soon.”

The foreign minister said the size of the Biman passenger fleet had expanded after Hasina took power and that Americans would be happy to see Biman operating in their country.

“But I cannot give a definitive date for when flights will resume,” Momen said.

Allowing Bangladesh’s national carrier to fly a plane to bring the prime minister and her entourage to the US is a “significant step in relations between the two countries”, he said.

Many countries were coming forward to improve their relations with Bangladesh now, though the situation may have been different before, he said.

Biman Bangladesh said the airline began running flights from Dhaka to New York in 1993, but suspended its service on the route in 1999. It resumed later that year, but was suspended again in 2006. No Biman flights have been operating on the route since.

According to Biman, its service on the route was suspended due to the limited number of planes in the fleet.

As the size of the fleet has recently increased, flights along the route are being considered, Biman said.

Service on the route will resume once preparations are ready and the relevant authorities have provided the necessary approvals, it said.