Amid the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh, the number of flights from the country to Kolkata has fallen over the last few months with a falling passenger count, the officials at the NSCBI airport said.
One Indian airline has scrapped its plan to start flight services between Kolkata and Dhaka for now, the officials added.
The number of flights arriving in Kolkata operated by US-Bangla Airlines, a private carrier from the neighboring country, dropped from 84 in July to just 24 in November, according to airport officials. Similarly, passenger traffic on these flights declined from 7,391 in July to 1,646 in November.
Departures from Kolkata to Bangladesh have shown a similar declining trend. Biman Bangladesh, the national carrier of the neighboring country, operated 59 flights to Kolkata in July, which dropped to 28 in November, according to officials. Meanwhile, the Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo also saw its flights from Bangladesh to Kolkata decrease from 62 in July to 44 in November, airport sources revealed.
IndiGo’s flight arrival figure from Bangladesh dropped to 44 from 62. Industry experts attribute the decline in flight operations to the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh, which began in August this year.
Biman Bangladesh reduced its operations from two daily flights to one starting August 10, while US-Bangla Airlines scaled back from three daily flights to one beginning August 17, according to airport sources.
Fewer passengers are traveling due to the crisis, with people from India avoiding trips to Bangladesh over safety concerns, experts explained.
Meanwhile, Air India Express, which had planned to launch flights to Dhaka from Kolkata and Chennai during the winter schedule, has put the plan on hold because of the ongoing situation in Bangladesh, sources added.
(With PTI inputs)