One of the country's three private airlines, Novoair, has suspended its flight operations from today.

Confirming the matter on Friday night, a Novoair official said, "Flight operations of Novoair have been suspended temporarily from today."

Wishing anonymity, he said, "We have been trying to sell our aircraft. A foreign party is coming for inspection. That's why flight operations have been suspended for now. Operations may resume later."

Rumours of Novoair shutting down had been circulating for quite some time as the airline had been struggling for a long period. Most recently, on April 19, the airline suddenly stopped taking new ticket bookings, further fuelling the speculation.

Later, however, the airline decided to resume operations.

Talks of Novoair winding up its business have been around for nearly two years.

At the end of January 2024, Novoair sold two ATR 72-500 aircraft to Nepal's Yeti Airlines. Yeti Airlines took delivery of the two aircraft on February 1.

Following the sale of those two aircraft, the private airline now has five aircraft in its fleet.

Novoair began passenger transport operations on the Dhaka-Chattogram route on January 9, 2013. Over the past 12 years, it has operated more than 100,000 flights, serving over 7.5 million passengers.

According to the fortnightly travel magazine The Bangladesh Monitor, Novoair was awarded "Best Domestic Airline" in 2014 and 2019, and "Best On-Time Performance Airline" in 2022 and 2023.

Most recently, Novoair operated daily flights on domestic routes from Dhaka to Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Sylhet, Jashore, Syedpur, and Rajshahi.

Novoair launched international flights on the Dhaka-Kolkata route in December 2016. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, flights on this route were suspended for some time.

Although operations later resumed, the airline again suspended flights on this route on September 16, 2024. The route remains suspended since then.