Dhaka: US-Bangla Airlines, Bangladesh's largest airline in terms of fleet size, has launched direct flights from Dhaka to Jeddah amid increasing demand for travel to Saudi Arabia.
This inaugural flight was conducted by the Minister of Aviation and Tourism Farooq Khan on Thursday evening.
“We launched the Dhaka-Jeddah flight as part of our long-term development plan,” Kamral Islam, the company's general manager, told Arab News.
Focusing on the Jeddah route, we have introduced Airbus with a capacity of 436 seats in our fleet. God willing, in the coming days, we will fly to other destinations in the Kingdom, such as Riyadh and Dammam.
Flights from Hazrat Shahjalal Dhaka International Airport to Jeddah are carried out by Airbus 330 every day of the week.
The airline is tapping into the growing Middle East travel market. Flights to Saudi Arabia have been too few to meet the needs of the roughly 3 million Bangladeshi workers in the country.
“There is a lot of demand for (flights) from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East,” Islam said.
He added: “Bangladeshi workers in Saudi Arabia have long wanted to launch a flight to this country, and with this flight to Jeddah, we tried to fulfill their wishes.”
This plan is also to serve the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who travel for the annual pilgrimage of Hajj and Umrah.
From the very first flight to Jeddah, we started carrying Umrah passengers. With the commencement of flight operations to Jeddah, we have come up with a plan to transport our Hajj pilgrims along with the Bangladeshi flag carrier Biman. Islam said: This will make the journey of our pilgrims to the holy land easier.
Last year, high demand for air tickets from Bangladesh to the Middle East during the Hajj season led to skyrocketing prices, leaving many would-be pilgrims unable to make the spiritual journey.
Founded in 2010, US-Bangla Airlines started as a domestic airline and has recently expanded its routes internationally. Currently 13 destinations in 10 countries are offered.
With the latest acquisition of new Airbus A330 and Boeing 737 aircraft earlier this year, the airline has become the largest airline in Bangladesh in terms of fleet size.
With these additions, the US-Bangla fleet now consists of 24 aircraft, while the national flag carrier fleet of Biman has 21 aircraft.
