Britain flies back 269 nationals from Bangladesh

As many as 269 Britons, who were stranded in Bangladesh due to a travel ban amid lockdowns over the coronavirus pandemic, have left Dhaka for home on a special flight.

A chartered British Airways plane took off from Shahjalal International Airport sometime after 4:00pm on Tuesday. It is the first British Airways passenger flight between Bangladesh and UK in 11 years.

British High Commissioner Robert Dickson in a series of tweets shared photos of the flight and thanked the government, civil aviation authority, police and volunteers for the special arrangements.

He said three more flights would leave Dhaka with hundreds of other British citizens this week.

Besides him, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen was present at the airport.   

A source at the airport, however, said the number of passengers on the flight was 264, including 10 children. 146 of them were flown by a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Sylhet earlier in the day.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had earlier said around 31 chartered planes will repatriate as many as 7,000 UK citizens stranded in South Asia.

British Airways had scrapped its flights on Dhaka-London route in March, 2009 following losses after decades in operation.

One of the world’s “most popular” airlines, it had been running commercial passenger flights once a week between the two capitals and started ferrying passengers by Boeing 777 in October 2001, with three direct flights a week.