Several thousands of Saudi-bound Bangladeshi expatriates left empty-handed at the end of the day as the Saudi Arabian Airlines in Dhaka on Sunday stopped issuing coupons to maintain serial to confirm return tickets.
The stranded expatriates gathered at the office of the KSA national carrier at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel where they had to face overcrowding and uncertainty about the ticket confirmation and lastly baton charges by police.
A sudden decision to suspend coupon distribution sparked protests among the passengers who had been waiting for days and joined the queue in the early hours of the day near the five star hotel in Karwan Bazar where Saudia office is located.
The airline was set to distribute coupons from 9:00am, according to their previous announcement.
However, a large section of people seeking ticket confirmation said that they were not given the much-awaited coupons, which led to anger and chaos.
The angry protesters spilled over to the nearby streets.
The police on duty charged baton to disperse the gathering as traffic on the busy road was hampered repeatedly.
The battle for ticket weighed heavily on many. Following baton charges, some passengers fainted while others fell ill at the end of the day.
Later in the day, the airlines distributed form where 20 passengers would drop their details of travel information and they would distribute tickets based on the information.
Mizanur Rahman was one of the ticket seekers and was seen waiting at Karwan Bazar as he managed his visa from his KSA employer, where he has been working over the last three years until he arrived in Dhaka on February 10 on leave.
‘I waited whole day and finally submitted my application as no tickets and coupons were distributed,’ he said.
Like him, Naimul Islam Santu said he has been waiting for the last seven day and finally on Sunday, he waited the entire day but failed to manage his return ticket.
He said that he was told by the Saudia officials that the passengers would be given tickets considering their urgency to get back to their destination.
A Saudia airlines executive told New Age that they were now trying to address the crisis over ticket distribution by following a structured approach.
Saudia airlines manager (sales) ZahidulAbedin said they were carrying 260 passengers on each flight keeping 140 seats empty while leaving Dhaka.
Saudia so far distributed 4,700 coupons among the stranded expatriates from their office in Karwan Bazar.
Saudia estimated that at least 30,000 stranded Bangladeshis needed to be ferried from Dhaka in the coming weeks while Biman said that it had over 20,000 passengers waiting.
The executives of Saudia, the national airline of Saudi Arabia, also said they could have ferried more passengers if the restriction was relaxed for them as they were set to distribute token to collect return tickets to KSA.
Bangladesh national flag carrier Biman was yet to allow operating commercial flights to and from Dhaka but was allowed 10 chartered special flights weekly.
The Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh on Sunday night relaxed its Covid19 time restriction on carrying passengers only on the Biman and Saudia to ferry its passengers to and from Dhaka.
On September 27, the CAAB, in an instruction with effect from October 1, until further notice, made public that all the international passenger flights that operated to and from Bangladesh would carry not more than 260 passengers for wide-body and 140 passengers for narrow-body aircraft.
