Local airlines feel the pinch of political unrest

The nationwide blockade is taking its toll on local airlines as the number of passengers has declined significantly on the domestic routes owing to growing fear of violence, officials said.

Talking to The Daily Star, top officials of US-Bangla Airlines, Novoair and Air Astra said the number of passengers has dropped by at least 25 percent following enforcement of hartals and blockades by BNP and Jamaat since October 29.

On some routes, especially to the tourist destinations, the decline has been so severe that airlines have been forced to cancel flights or cut their frequency.

The unrest comes at a time when the tourism industry is gearing to welcome tourists and overcome business slowdown amid sustained higher inflation.

"October to December is considered to be the peak season for domestic airlines as people travel during the quarter. But none is making advance booking for tickets due to the ongoing political unrest and the return of blockades and hartals," Mofizur Rahman, managing director of Novoair, told The Daily Star.

Novoair usually operates seven daily flights from the capital city to Cox's Bazar, the most popular tourist destination in Bangladesh, with a good number of passengers on board. Now, it is running four to five flights every day as travelers avoid non-essential movement.

Large corporates usually book tickets in advance at this time of the year for leisure or official purposes. Such booking is almost non-existent this year, according to Rahman.

He said the number of passengers has fallen by 20 to 25 percent owing to the present political situation.

"This is a severe blow to airlines business as we are counting huge losses every day."

Novoair operates 38 flights daily on six domestic routes.

Kamrul Islam, manager for public relations at US-Bangla Airlines, said the load factor usually ranges from 75 percent to 80 percent.

"But the load factor has now come down to 60 to 65 percent due to blockade and hartals."

The load factor, which measures the percentage of available seating capacity that has been filled with passengers, of the flights to tourist destinations such as Cox's Bazar and Sylhet is lower than in other regions.

"The present situation reminds us of the sorry state operators witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic when domestic airports looked like barren fields," Islam said.

US-Bangla operates 70 flights daily on all seven domestic destinations of the country.

A top official of Air Astra says the number of passengers has dropped significantly as tourists are not travelling. Only some business travelers are using air routes.

"If the situation does not return to normalcy, the airlines industry will be affected seriously."

Air Astra runs nine flights on Cox's Bazar, Saidpur and Chattogram routes daily.