Qatar Airways temporarily closed its Dhaka office from today after seeing a huge rush of ticket-buyers. The office was closed to maintain social distancing, with the airlines requesting passengers to book tickets via phone or email.

"As there has been a high demand of tickets, a large number of people came to our office in Bangladesh to book tickets and unfortunately did not maintain strict social distancing," the airlines said in a release.

The airlines also said, "As the safety and security of our customers and employees is our top priority, we have temporarily closed the office to maintain social distancing and now politely request all passengers call or email us to help with their bookings."

Qatar Airways has received an approval for operating three flights every week to and from Bangladesh from 16 June.

Unfortunately, a large number of passengers had bookings for the last three months since March 22 which could not be used, the release also said.

"One of our prime priorities is to assist these passengers with an unused booking and find available seats on flights at no extra charge," the release also said.

The airlines also said it had applied the Civil Aviation rules in Bangladesh keeping 25 percent of seats empty on each flight.